John Hakala oral history transcript

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John Hakala 1
John Hakala
Life story
Fish and Wildlife — April/May 1997
#Tape One#
John: “Well, I was born in Ironwood, Michigan, back in September 12,
1919, and at the time we were still — [living with my grandparents on my
mother’s side ] — my mother was taking care of my grandmother, who had
cancer — was seriously ill with cancer. So these are my early recollections.
Maybe I was a year and a half or going on two years old, you know. I was
fortunate to be born in the Newport Mining Company hospital, whereas my
older sister and some of my other siblings, they say they were born in a
sauna — my Grandfather’s sauna. [But I believe they were born at home —
wherever that was at the time.] Upon my Grandmother’s passing away, well,
ah — well, see, at that time my Dad was working in the mine, and so
therefore I had the opportunity of being born in a hospital — this mining
company hospital. And I guess while he was there, too, he was a — no, he
was taking a side course. He was [teaching himself] to be an electrician. And
this was in Newport location of Ironwood, and so during this period of time
he was also installing light poles and distributing power and wiring houses —
electrically wiring houses. (I’m gettin’ too involved in it!)”
Carol: “Oh, no! This is interesting!”
John: **{insert} “There were — five — five brothers and three sisters in
the family. One sister was the eldest, and I followed next. I remember when
— I must have been just at the crawling stage when my Grandfather used to
come in the house for his mid-morning break — in other words, he’d have a
second breakfast, which was around nine — mid-morning. And ah, I’d be
there crawling around. I recall crawling around, and one time he picked me
up, and he set me in the opposite chair to him at the table, and he said, “
From now on, you’re going to eat breakfast with ME!” So I remember what he
had — thinking back, I mean — what he had on that table. He had salt
salmon cut in squares; he had Finnish — what we called Rieska, it’s a flat
bread cut in long slices, and a pitcher of buttermilk, and a bowl of what the
Finns — Finnish people call felia — viilia, actually — is what today is known
as yogurt. One thing I remember about those mid-morning breaks with my
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Grandfather was that he taught me, also, to DRINK FRESH EGGS! That was
the main dish — set on the middle of the table — was a bowl of fresh
[chicken] EGGS! He’d break an end off the egg shell, he’d hold it in my
mouth, at first, when I was learning, and he told me to SUCK! [chuckle]
And there we’d sit and eat until [chuckle] until I couldn’t hold any more. And
then he’d set me back on the floor, and I’d go off on my way. And this
occurred day after day, and pretty soon I was — I must have been gaining
strength, because I was able to even crawl ONTO that chair. I didn’t have to
have him lift me.
Since that time, I’ve been very — what’s the word now? — PARTIAL
towards eggs. I recall when I had arrived at Elmendorf on December 7, 1942,
there was an indoctrination of the new crews. And we were invited over to
the — I forget whether it was just a mess-hall, or an officers’ club, or the
NCO club. But there, again, as part of the initiation ceremony, the ones who
were conducting this phase of it, had lined up glasses, and had a couple of
dozen eggs sitting on the table, and they broke these eggs into these
glasses, and then they poured in a jot of beer, and they told each of us, as
part of your initiation is to drink this. Which we did. And — I — LOVED it!!
[laugh] I asked for MORE. [laugh laugh chuckle] Ah, yeah, yeah.
What I really recollect is one day — it must have been 1920 or ‘21,
when my Uncle Dex — Edward Sarkella — had returned from the Hawaiian
Islands. He had served in the Panama District, and the Hawaiian Islands for
years and years, and he came home, and apparently he was very ill with
rheumatism — they called it rheumatism those days — they call it arthritis.
I recall hearing voices outside the [chuckle] place we were living. My
Grandfather had a huge sauna, which was double, you know — one side for
men, one side for women. In this mining district, well they all made their
“annual trek” to the steam-bath on Saturday night to get their pores open
from all this iron ore that they had in ‘em, you know? Well anyway, I heard
them — some activity going out there, and I snuck outa the house! I don’t
know if I was such a little kid I don’t know how I got out there, but I
wandered down, looking to see what was going on, and [laugh] there I saw
this huge barrel with my Uncle Dex’s head sticking out of it. He was sitting
on a stool in this barrel — this big wooden barrel, you know! [chuckle] And
then I heard — no! I heard the screech of a wheel barrow. And there comes
my Grandfather from around the back side of the barn. [gesturing] The cows
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were on this side, and the horses on the other side. So he comes from the
back side of the barn with a wheel-barrow load of horse manure! [laugh] And
he’s chuckling to himself, I guess, and I’m watching, and — see, this all
came back to me, now, in these recent months — just when I’ve been here by
myself.”
Carol: “Just thinkin’ about it, huh?”
John: “Well, I don’t know. From time long ago is more in my mind
than what’s present.
Well, anyway, he wheeled that barrow up to the barrel, and he lifted his
fork — I remember him lifting that fork, and sifting this ah — whatever he
had in that barrow, I assumed afterwards that it was — had to be manure,
you know. I mean, after I got to thinkin’ about it here. Then he — that’s
right, then he took two pails. He went into the sauna, and he came out with
this steaming water in these pails. He had unloaded that wheel-barrow first,
and then he came with those pails, and he poured that water in there, and I
remember, then, when he started laughing! His chuckle! His — it just rings
in my ears even today, you know? And then the next thing I knew, my Uncle
had turned around, and he saw me there! And he hollered to my Mother, you
know, he says, “Non-nie! Get that — whatever you want to call it — brat —
outa here!” [chuckle] Next thing I knew my Mother was FLYING outa the
door of the house, and grabbed me, and brought me in there, you know, and
PULLED down all the blinds, and everything! And here I’d go, sneaking
around and tryin’ to peek out again! [chuckle] She’d be there with a dish
cloth a-WHACKin’ me! [laugh] That’s my earliest recollection.” [laugh]
Carol: “That’s amazing! So what were they doing?”
John: “Well, they were gonna soak him in this ah — hot water to cure
his arth — to cure his rheumatism. And you know, as I recall afterwards, I
mean in later years, when I think back on it, he had no more rheumatism!
He was straight as a rod, and he’d — walk just like a soldier! He never never
had any problems with ah — so, I don’t know. Maybe that was a cure! [laugh]
Maybe that’s the cure I should take! [laugh] But where you gonna find the
horses?” [laugh]
Carol: “Oh! That’s GREAT! [laugh] And you were so curious!”
John: “Yeah! Yeah! Well, that was the bad part of it. I was too
curious all the time! So then my Grandmother passed away, and of course,
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my Grandfather immediately went to look for the second “Akka,” which is the
second wife. Three days he was back with one, you know!”
Carol: “THREE DAYS?”
John: “Well, he went to Washburn, Wisconsin, and he came back with
one. [laugh] So there can’t be two head — or what do you call them, in the
house — two main women, you know, controlling the house, of course all
three have to go. But by that time, I guess, my father had begun building a
place in Norrie — another location of Ironwood.”
Carol: “Were these his parents, or her parents?”
John: “Her parents. And we moved then to Norrie — as soon as the
new boss wife came, you know. What — oh, yes — that’s right — the reason
we actually DID move to Norrie was that my Dad had obtained a job as
teamster for the fire department. In those days they had — they pulled their
fire wagons and sleds with teams of horses. And I guess he had had
experience selling Watkins items, or whatever they call them, you know,
driving horses and that, so they figured that he’s eligible for the job. Or else
the politicians put him in, you know? As it usually works out.
But then the fire department in Norrie was located just opposite —
kitty-corner to the place where he was born and raised — the house he was
born and raised in! That was something that came to my mind, you know.
Although I have no recollection much — TOO much about the place itself.
But I remember the fire department, because that’s the first place I ambled
to, you know, being [chuckle] — from my HOME, when I got out the door,
well, I went over the hill to the fire department.”
Carol: “Wow! And you were still a little tiny guy!”
John: “Yeah. Well, I must have been going on two and a half years old
or something like that, you know. And [chuckle] (Oh, Golly!) ‘Course these
horses that they had, as I remember them NOW, they were really wild
horses! Holy smokers! They were — and here is a little brat wandering
around in there! I’d go up to where the firemen lived, you know, upstairs.
They had their pole that they’d come down when the bell rang, or whatever
the signal was. I remember going up there. My Dad told me, he said that ah,
“Any time that bell rings, you head for right there in that corner, and you
STAY there!” You know? So I’d watch what went on, and the bell would ring,
and he’d jump off, and he had his pants and his boots all ready so he’d —
when he came off the top bunk, his feet slipped right into his boots, you
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know, and he’d pull ‘em up, you know, and he’d throw his rubber jacket on,
and down the pole he’d go, and the next thing — by that time the horses
were all loose downstairs, and you’d hear ‘em rumbling and charging around,
and they were trained so they went under their harness. The harnessed drop
on ‘em, and they’d pull up a couple of straps, and the door would open, and
there he’d be with the whip, you know.
So after after — I forget how many months of this, I had gone there one
time when they were going to make a demonstration run — for TIME, see.
They were timing all the drivers. The three shifts that they had — or two
shifts, I forget what — what it was. But — and this was with the WHEELS —
the wagons with the WHEELS — this was in the summer time. And they had
this route down Pine Street, swing over on (what was it?) Ash, or something,
but then up Oak Street and back down to the fire house. But it was quite a
distance. And there was a cliff on two of these places that had just been
blasted through all this broken rock. There was no roadway where that went.
The road had turned off towards Ironwood, and this went straight down the
hill. But this demonstration — well, when I came in there, well my Dad was
there, and he — he stuck me under the front seat of the wagon — lifted me
up there, and he said, “Just stay there!” [laugh] And I recall, then, that
when that bell rang, and those HORSES came, and I was watchin’ this little-bit,
you know, and I saw that harness drop, and they strapped the horses in,
and the doors opened, and my Dad had the whip ready, and OFF he went! And
that wagon just s-S-SLID around that curve, you know, ninety degrees down
the road we went, those horses galloping as fast as they could, and then my
Dad turned around, and told me, he says, “Ring that BELL!” [laugh!] So I
was standing up there, ringing this bell! [laugh laugh]
We got to the — we went through this break in the cliff, you know,
where they had blasted all that [rock] out, and there was no roadway, just
bouncing over those sharp rocks, down to this other road, and when he
swung around THAT curve, that wagon just went, you know — I thought it
was gonna roll OVer — ‘course now when I think back on it, I — thought it
was gonna roll over. But it really SWUNG — so that the horses had to PULL
it to straighten in out. And down the road we went, and we had to make that
OTHER turn. Well, anyway, when we finally got up to the top of Oak Street,
well, the horses were ALL in FOAM! They were just galloping ALL OUT! Dad
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stopped just for a minute, he said to give ‘em a breather, and he handed me
on the ground. He says, “Go HOME.” [laugh]
He went around the corner, then back to the fire house. But he got the
best time! [laugh laugh] And he did this a couple of times in the winter, too,
you know, in the sleigh. Boy, when that SLEIGH slid around. . .”
Carol: “Oh! That’s what you mean about the WHEELS!”
John: “Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, golly!”
Carol: “Wow! Were they those big, big horses? Or were they regular
sized horses?”
John: “Oh, they were ah — well, I can’t recall, but they were — I don’t
know how they measure them in height, you know. I mean how many hands
high. But they were...”
Carol: “They weren’t the ones with the big feet.”
John: “Oh, no, no, no. Not the big feet. They were — they were more
or less streamlined horses — more like a racehorse instead of a draft horse.
Well anyway, my Dad always was greatly interested in the woods, and
he’d do a lot of trapping, and — on the side — hunting as a boy and as a
young man. And of course that got my interest, too. And ah — how was it
now? — we moved from — that’s right. My Dad finally bought a farm in
Ironwood township from my Mother’s Father. And it was just a — [chuckle]
the Finns always like to go where there’s ROCKS, you know. And this was
ALL ROCKS. That’s all I remember about the place is ROCKS! Rock bluffs,
rock everything, you know. And — well, we moved there in ‘27, I think it was.
And then — how old would that have made me?”
Carol: “You were probably eight.”
John: “Eight? Yeah. Eight, nine. Yeah, that’s right. Mm-hm. Then. .
.On the farm there, well, I started trapping muskrat. And I — that’s the way
I got most of my clothes. It was all during Depression years, you know.
There was no money. Dad had wired practically the whole township in
electricity, and nobody could pay him, so there was a big shortage of change,
you know? And the muskrat I trapped, I recall gettin’ just ten cents a skin
for ‘em. [laugh]”
Carol: “Oh MAN! [But] that was pretty good PAY in the Depression,
wasn’t it?”
John: “Well, I suppose it was then, but when you think back on it —
ten cents! — for forty skins, what was it? Four dollars? [laugh] I recall that
John Hakala 7
forty skins one time I had! Well, anyway, that kept on directing me more or
less towards the woods, you know. And as I grew older, well, even in high
school, I started trapping coyote. But I’d have to travel forty miles to our
hunting place where I set out these traps, and the only way to get there was
by hitch-hiking, you know. But I got a few coyote, as I recall, in those high
school years, but then for the [Ironwood Junior] college, which was located
there at the Ironwood High School — a part of it at that time — although
they made a separate (see, I can’t think of the words again.) — they branched
it out into a new area, [and called it Gogebic Community College] — at the
present time. But I recall when I was going to the Junior College then, we
were earning maybe seven dollars and fifty cents a month. We had jobs —
during those Depression years, you know, it was all government service.
And, of course, they’d give — the treasurer of the college was always there
ready with his hand out to get that seven dollars and fifty cents! And I came
up twenty dollars short on my final counting for one year, you know? And so
I had this coyote line out there, but this was — ah — (what part of the
month was that?) It had to be in the Fall — mm-hm. Because I’d been
trappin’ that summer — running that coyote line. And I’d gone out there —
hitch-hiked out this forty miles, and hiked in to where my traps were, and I
came upon one trap that was sprung, and it had a dead coyote in it, but it
was so far gone already, that I didn’t figure I’d be able to get anything on it,
you know? So I put it all in a bag, and I carried it back to the road, and here
I was — in my pack-sack — and of course it smelled to high Heaven! So a car
happened to stop, and it was one of these older model cars, you know, with
the light bulb out here, where you could sling your strap over it, and I had it
just hanging on the fender. Well, I asked the fella first, if I could do this. I
said, “I’ve got a coyote here that I want to get the bounty on, if I can.” And
he happened to be a Forest Service man. And he drove me back, and let me
off at my drop-off point, and I talked with him all the way in, and that got an
interest in Forestry for me. I asked him a few questions, I guess, about what
his job was, and what he was doing, and he said cruising, and all this stuff,
you know. Setting up timber sales, and all that, and just — well, all the work
that he did. So that must have made an impression on me, because then
after I got this bounty collected — ‘course I had to wait MONTHS! And this
treasurer of the college, he was on me every week, you know. And I brought
him this slip of paper to show him that I had this commission with the state
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of Michigan for this twenty dollars, [laugh] but he couldn’t wait to get it, you
know! He was ready to kick me outa school! So finally it arrived, and I
dashed over there, and I says, “I hope you’re satisfied now! You don’t have
to worry about kickin’ me out this year, anyway.
Well then — that was in — I graduated in ‘40. ‘Course the war was
comin’ — or anyway expected. Anyway, the conditions were of that kind that
— well, I had had a buddy in college — at this community college — who, as
part of his course, at the community college, took flying as one of his
subjects. And, of course, he soloed and qualified as a pilot. We were pretty
close, so he said that he was putting in for the Flying Cadets. “John,” he
said, “well why don’t you try, too.” So I put in for the Flying Cadets. And this
was in the summer of 1940 — Yeah. Mm-hm. That’s right.
And then ah — come September he receives a notice that he’s to report
to — as a Flying Cadet to a certain base in St. Louis! I forget the name of
the little field that he went to. But here I’m left — waiting! I waited that
fall, I went — of course I was doing some trapping, too, trying to keep ahead
of the game. I had nothing else to fall back on. There was no work. I spent
that hunting season — well, that whole fall and that — up through
Christmas and into January mainly in the woods. I don’t know what I
derived out of it. I know I got my own deer, and all that. I lived on deer meat
for a while. But then when I came back to the farm, I could see that the
situation wasn’t changing, and that the war was looking more critical, so I
decided, I said, “I’m going...” That’s right. No word was coming from these
Flying Cadets — from THE Flying Cadets — or HAD arrived, I should say. So
I went to the — what do you call them — the enlisted men, or the one who
enlists? — see, I can’t think of these words!”
Carol: “Yeah, I can’t think of them either.”
John: “Well, that’s the way my mind is. My mind is that way, that
words don’t come to it now.
Well anyway, I went to see him. I hiked into town — ‘course I had no
vehicles [then], and went to see him, and explained my situation, that I was
waiting for orders to see if I’d qualified for the Flying Cadets, you know? At
least a denial. And he says, “WELL,” he says, “We can fix THAT up SIMPLY!
We can..” he says, “ all you do, is we’ll enlist you as a private in the Air
Corps. You go to your station, and you, ah, you tell them what has
transpired, and they’ll immediately see what’s the results of your physical,
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and all that, and if you had passed it, and whatever, you know. And if you’re
qualified or whatever.” Yeah. I took him. . .[laugh] [at his word]”
Carol: “You believed him, huh?”
John: “I believed him! So I signed up, went home, told the folks what
I’d done. Next day I had to go back, and get the final papers approved. So my
Dad drove me there, and, of course, then he realized that I’d be leaving, and .
. . It was THAT EVENING, too! That was about — THAT’s right! It was
February fourteenth. Isn’t that Valentine’s Day? YES! February fourteenth I
left them — on February 14, 1941. Whew! That’s right. 1941.
Well anyway, I got, then, finally, to Scott Field, and I found myself in —
a buck private in the rear rank in a [laugh] picking cigarette butts!”
Carol: “Not flyin’, huh?”
John: “Picking cigarette butts! [laugh] That’s all I did for weeks and
weeks and weeks, was pick cigarette butts! I’ll tell you! I got so tired of
cigarette butts, if I see anybody around, coming around smoking even here,
you know, I make sure that that cigarette butt is...”
Carol: “Goes home!”
John: “A-huh— goes home with THEM, yeah! [laugh]
Well, anyway, while I was there at Scott Field, well this friend of mine
from college — or community college days — he heard that I was there, and
he — he made a special trip from
St. Luis to Scott Field, Illinois! St. Louis is in Missouri, isn’t it?”
Carol: “Mm-hm. Yeah.”
John: “I guess. And boy, I’ll tell you, how they snapped to attention
when they saw a Flying Cadet comin’ on base — to visit this lowly buck
private — in the rear rank!”
Carol: [laugh]“Pickin’ up those cigarette butts!”
John: “Picking cigarette butts and washing out those commodes!
[laugh] That was all my work, you know? GOL-LY! [laugh] Well, anyway, we
passed a few hours there together, and then he departed. But then he — he
was — that’s right. He was transferring, then, to another flight school, and
that was I think in — NO, no! He went to ah — Randolph Field. That’s right.
He went — was transferred to Randolph Field. That’s in Texas, you know.”
Carol: “I was gonna ask where it is. Do you remember the town?”
John: “Around San Antonio. ‘Cause, ah, later — well, how was it? —
Yeah! — Well, that’s right! Then they had us take “intelligence tests.” I
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recall that. We had to scribble out these tests, you know. And apparently I
rated pretty high on some of ‘em, ‘cause they said, “We’re sending you to Fort
Logan, Colorado, to become a typist and sec’etary!” [laugh] So next thing I
knew I was heading on a train for Fort Logan, Colorado, which is close, right
next to Denver, you know? [laugh] And there, for — I don’t know how many
months, three months, or four months, I was ah — learning to pound that
typewriter! [laugh] Geez! It was SOMEthin’, I’ll tell you! And then, after I
finished the course, well, they didn’t know where to ship me to, so they gave
me a job, then, shoveling coal! I had to fill all the officers’ winter coal-storage
bins, you know! [laugh] So all I did there for weeks and weeks was
shovel coal — and just as BLACK as the Ace of Spades, you know? ‘Cause it
was all that soft, bituminous coal, and just as dusty, and — o00, MAN!
But finally orders came through, and it was — where the — it was in
Georgia somewhere — Macon, Georgia! By Golly, I remembered the name!
And I was sent to Macon, Georgia, and I didn’t know it, but this was a
training school where they were teaching British cadets to fly.”
Carol: “Weird!”
John: “Yeah. See? It all comes out in the wash! [laugh] They were
doing this all this time, even though nobody else knew about it! [laugh]
See? We had nothin’ to do with the war! And here we’re training British
flyers!” [laugh]
Carol: “That’re out there doin’ their thing!”
John: “[laugh] Yeah! But then they put me in the headquarters
section of personnel. They figured since I just came out of school, I have all
the brains to do all this stuff, you know. So then they set me down, and all
they had me doing was typing ah — what were they? — typing, typing, typing
PAY reports! SHEETS and SHEETS of pay, you know! NAMES, and every —
every digit had to be checked and rechecked everything.”
Carol: “Oh! Tedious!”
John: “Tedious! Most tedious job! And that’s the first time I ever
used a dial telephone! Was when I was in there! And I didn’t even know
how to operate it! [laugh] I was used to this crank type! [laugh] Yes! I’ll
tell you! I...I — It was a problem at first to get used to it! I didn’t know how
to operate it. But I was supposed to know all this stuff! Here I got all the
payrolls made up for that month, and everything checked out ok, and — but
as time went on, I — how was it?
John Hakala 11
When I first arrived at Scott Field, well, I had all my applications and
everything that I had sent in to the Air Corps for Flying Cadets, so the first
thing I did was to go down to — whatever my main office at that time was, at
Scott Field, and turn them over to the First Sergeant. He took a look at ‘em,
and he brought ‘em into the Lieutenant or Captain, whoever was in charge of
this base squadron that I was pickin’ butts on, you know — cigarette butts,
and ah, the Captain came out, and he handed me the papers, and he told me
to go to headquarters. He says, “See the Sergeant Major at headquarters.
He’ll — he’ll get you straightened up.”
Carol: “All RIGHT!”
John: Well, I was just brand new. That was the first morning. I was
just in brown fatigues, and I had no indoctrination in the military. All these
officers were coming by, and they’d TURN, and they’d LOOK at me, and they’d
LOOK back at me. I was wondering, “What’s the matter?” I was supposed to
be salutin’ ‘em!!! [laugh! laugh!] Here I’m just WALKIN’ ALONG!! [laugh]
Minding my own business!! [laugh laugh] I hadn’t had the first basic — you
know — ANYthing thrown at me as to what — what I was supposed to DO!
[laugh, laugh, chuckle] I was just in these coveralls, you know? [laugh]
I got to this headquarters building, and I guess I didn’t even know what
door to go into, but I climbed up the main stairway, and got in through these
huge doors, and got in there. They all looked at me, you know. [chuckle] I
said, that, ah, Captain so-and-so had sent me up here to see the Sergeant
Major — that — for me to turn these papers over to him. That’s what I recall
saying, anyway. So they got the Sergeant Major, and he brought me into his
office, and ‘course he didn’t have me sit down. He thumbed through those
papers, and he says, “Well,” he says that ah, “You’re in the Army, now!” He
says, “Until we decide whether — I mean the Air Force — until we decide
whether you’re gonna be qualified for the Cadets, you’ll just have to remain
here as a, you know, buck private, and do your thing!” So that was the story
I had from him!
So I went back and reported into the squadron room, or whatever it
was, told ‘em the story, and that’s when they sent me out again — pickin’
butts, you know? Then they — well then they started giving me basic
training, too. Marching! Learning to MARCH! [laugh] I don’t know for how
long I did that. At the same time, they were giving us these intelligence
tests, and that’s when they shipped me to Fort Logan then, and pounding
John Hakala 12
that typewriter; and shoveling that coal! And then I got on that train finally
to Macon, Georgia.
When I got to Macon — of course they didn’t know I was coming. I
arrived at Macon, I guess, in the middle of the night, and I — I didn’t know
where to go, or do anything, and I finally saw a telephone with a notice that
said arrivals for this Air Base just, ah, call, you know. So I called, and I
waited, and I called, and I waited again, and finally at about four o’clock in
the morning they — a truck rolls up, and I climb aboard in the back, and they
haul me down to this flying field, and they have no place to put me up in, so
they put me in a — ah — that’s right, there was the — it was the MP’s that
came to get me — that’s right — in that truck. So they had a recreation
room. And they had a pool table in there. And they threw a blanket on the
pool table, and they told me that — Ah, “You — you sleep here.” [laugh]
“Welcome to Macon, Georgia!” [laugh, laugh] Oh, boy, I’ll tell ya, it was really
a time!
And finally I guess I was assigned, then, to this — whatever —
squadron — headquarters squadron or something, and then to typing out
those pay [roles] or whatever — until the ninth of — NO! It wasn’t the
ninth. It was a Sunday! December 7 in the afternoon. I had gone into
Macon itself — had gotten a pass, and I attended a moving picture show. I
can’t remember what the show was. But anyway, not even half way into the
movie, all of a sudden everything goes black, you know, and they said that —
a fella climbs up on the platform, and says, “All — all service personnel are
directed to report back to their base as quickly as possible. There’s a — take
the quickest available transportation that you can get,” you know? So I
climbed out of the show and went — went to the bus station, got on the bus
and went back to my base, and there I found out that Japan had attacked
Pearl Harbor! And of course EVERYTHING went on alert then, you know!
OH! I’ll tell you! And, ah, ah, nobody knows nothing, you know — to — what
to DO, or anything. But they were all doing SOMEthing, and it was — it was
just, ah, — hilarious!
Carol: Just runnin’ around, huh?
John: That’s all it was! It was just hilarious. Well anyway, that was
Sunday. Monday — now how was it? Yeah! — Monday a special courier came
down from headquarters, you know, on Macon, Georgia, to my squadron, with
orders for John B. Hakala to REPORT to the Flying Cadets!
John Hakala 13
Carol: ALL RIGHT!! [laugh]
John: Kelly Field, Texas! [laugh]
Carol: Y-YES! [laugh]
John: [laugh]
Carol: They WERE listening! Wow!
John: But first, again, I had to pass another physical! See? But they
had the — they had sent the Air Corps medical officer to the station — that
was, ah (one, two) — I think it was the second day after war had been —
well, yeah! The following day war was declared!
Carol: Mm. On Monday.
John: On Monday. Then it was on Tuesday that he appeared, and, ah,
I went through this, ah, interrogation first, and then a quick medical, you
know, and then was handed my orders to report in so many days to Kelly
Field.
So I went to Kelly Field — eventually got there, through New Orleans, I
guess it was, and, ah, by bus mostly. And when I got to Kelly Field, well, I
was assigned to this one squadron, and see, I’d taken ROTC in high school,
and of course when they saw ROTC, {they thought, “officer material!”, you know.
Carol: THAT’s why you weren’t saluting those officers, huh? [laugh]
}[italics were cut from tape by lead]
John: That could be IT, you know? Sheez! [chuckle]
Carol: “Hey! I’m one of ya!” [laugh]
John: [laugh] Yeah, ok. Now I can’t think of what was the position
they assigned me to? Golly! It wasn’t squadron commander. It was the next
one under him — ah — I can’t remember the title, anyway. But it was the —
the second one down. His underling — his immediate underling, but I can’t
think of the word it was. But anyway, they gave me a sword along with it,
and a sand brown belt, you know? [laugh] So here — ah —I’m just out of
basic training, ba— barely able to march in line, and [chuckle] here they got
me [chuckle] in CHARGE of this — ah — squadron of men, you know. And
I’m supposed to instruct THEM in all these basics of MARCHing, and all
that!! [laugh! laugh!] Oh! It was HILARIOUS! But you know, I came out
with a pretty good group! I don’t know how I did it, but I — they were
cooperative, anyway. They didn’t, ah [chuckle] take too much advantage of
me. ‘Course at that time I didn’t [chuckle] much care, either. I just let ‘em
have it with both barrels! Marching them up and down Kelly Field, and got
John Hakala 14
‘em looking pretty good, and we had a final inspection, and I can recall that
— (by golly! I led the whole squadron! Now how come I was leadin’ the
whole squadron? [pause]) I guess my voice was louder — was loudest.
That’s why they put me in front [laugh]— so I could count their “one, two,
three, four!” [laugh] “HEP!” [laugh] That brass sword! NO! I had the saber!
I was waving the saber, too, in the air! That’s right! ‘Cause I had to salute
the [chuckle] whoever it was — the dignitaries, you know. [laugh]
But anyway, I got out o’ there, and they put me in charge of this ah,
truck transportation fleet — to — hauling all these basic — well, the Flying
Cadets — to their next base, you know, which was at Ballenger, Texas.
(That’s right.) I was in charge of that whole line of trucks, you know,
loaded with all these guys. And it took me (what was it?) a day and a half to
get there to the base. I didn’t know anything about these things, you know?
I just sat there in the lead truck with the driver beside me, and [laugh] made
on as if I knew it all! [laugh]
We got there in the middle of the night, I guess it was, and all of a
sudden we got to the gate, you know, of this flying field, and, the lights all
came on, you know! As though, “Here’s — they’re invading! Or engaging in an
ATTACK or something,” you know? And I crawled outa the cab of the truck,
and they grabbed onto me, and they said, — well, I had all these orders, you
know? And they scooted me in there, and brought me to their, ah, head man,
and presented all these orders to him, and eventually we got settled down, I
guess. They gave us a bed, and stuff like that, but that was my first day at
Ballenger, Texas, for — primarily flying. I was there for three months, and I
went — and then I was transferred to Randolph Field! Where my former
classmate had gone! And when he left Randolph, he had gone to the west
coast.
Carol: Oh! He was gone.
John: And when war was declared, he was immediately shipped to the
Phillipines! He didn’t even have a chance to check out in a fighter plane
when he left stateside, you know? And he was sent to the Phillipines, and
he never flew after that!
Carol: He never did fly during the war?
John: No. He was in the Baton March, he fought the Japanese there
on the ground, he was — as an infantryman. This is what I learned later.
And he survived the Baton March, but then, being an officer, the was
John Hakala 15
transferred —they wanted to ship him to Japan. And the only way they could
get him — at that time, I guess — was to ship him by submarine. And ah —
the submarine he was aboard was, ah, — clobbered by and American
submarine.
Carol: Oh, no!
John: MM-hm.
Carol: And he was killed?
John: [quietly] Yep. So that was the end of . . . of him. Well anyway, I
didn’t know about this until later in life, but if I’d learned . . .
But when I was at Kelly Field going — again I was assigned as an
officer of one of the squadrons, you know? I forget the — Oh, I was the lead
man on one of the squadrons. I forget the title. But I had to perform “Officer
of the Day” duty once a month, you know. And that meant that you were up
twenty-four hours — around the clock. ‘Course you’d sleep when you had a
chance, but, ah, but anything going on, well, you had to be on top of it. But
while I was in this capacity I was going through this book of former officers of
the day, you know, their schedules, and that, and I ran across his name!
And there he had it all laid out what he had been doing, you know? So — so
that was, ah . . . I thought, anyway, that his folks would like to know that,
that I had seen this, but [quietly] when I got back to Ironwood, well, they
didn’t appreciate it too much. I mean ..., ah,. . . because I came back alive,
and he was dead, you know.
Carol: Oh! Isn’t that too bad!
John: Yea. So I didn’t see very much of those people any more, even
though we had a pretty good . . . pretty good relationship prior.
Well then, ah,[pause]
After completing my flight training at Randolph, in a BTA, or something
— AT, or something on that order, then I was transferred to Kelly Field,
Texas, as a — supposedly a fighter pilot — for training as a fighter pilot. And
of course there we did a lot of — well, all types of flight training including
gunnery, and bombing, and using, ah, AT6 type of aircraft. And we’d actually
shoot at targets strung up behind a plane that would be flying — with a long
cable, and then this target flying behind, and we’d be diving at that, and
shooting it — or hopefully shooting it up with holes, you know. ‘Cause every
pilot had their own (what would you call it?) — color of ammunition, ‘cause
when they’d penetrate, you’d know who’s bullet had hit. So I think I came
John Hakala 16
out high man. And I was scheduled to go — to continue in fighter pilot
training, you know? Move up! Just then, when (what’s his name? Colonel,
Colonel, Colonel... He’s a Colonel now. He was a Major at that time, ah —
with the B-25’s, when they clobbered Japan off of that carrier? Back in —
what was it? Forty- — yeah, it was forty-two!) Dolittle! General who evolved
as — who ended up as General Dolittle? He was a Major when he began
that, and he got to be a full Colonel when he completed the flight. And then
he rose up in ranks. I guess he went through — a year, up and — he came
out a Major General, or a Lieutenant General, or something like that.
But anyway, the B-25 was the BIG — the HOT DOG! So the whole
class was put into B-25’s!! [laugh] So I had NO chance to get into my —
what I wanted to get into as a fighter pilot, you know? Well, I’d been in
SINGLE engine, SINGLE man — I didn’t want all the responsibility for the
crews, and all that. That’s what I was thinkin’ of. But here I ended up with
— in that capacity, and — and I was then sent from — (where was I at then?)
— [Skott] Field, [Texas] — yeah — I was sent to Greenville, South Carolina!
That’s the state next — north of Georgia! Mm-hm. Greenville, South
Carolina for training in the B-25.
When I got there, they had no airplanes there. Finally a lone B-25, one
of the earliest made models — it was, ah, — came in, you know. And of
course we were all anxious to get aboard, to see what it looked like, and all
this and that, and then we were also taught to fly it — or “checked out” on it
— that was the word — “checking out.” They didn’t teach you to fly them any
more. They figured you knew how to fly, so they just “checked you out.”
Yeah, they checked me out in — what was it? — three hours, — no, three
flights. They checked me out, and they sent me on my way with the airplane,
you know? That’s. . . That’s the way they did it those days.
And you know, when I first soloed at — what was that field that I said
first?
Carol: Not Kelly. . .
John: No. [Ballenger Field, Texas!] Well, in four hours I had my, ah —
they sent me up solo, so I must have had something coming — or going for
me at flying, anyway. They must have thought I was a pilot! [laugh] Well,
anyway, I survived the war, so I must have been! That’s good.
Well anyway, after I finished — as I was approaching the finish end of
our short course at Greenville, South Carolina, a notice was posted on board
John Hakala 17
— the bulletin board, is the word I was trying to say — that “Volunteers are
being” or “Looking for volunteers for special mission.” So I immediately went
up there and signed my name!
Carol: [laugh] You’re kind of a — out there kind of a guy, aren’t you!?”
John: [laugh] Immediately went to sign my name. And then a few of
the others — my so-called “friends” at that time joined me, and put their
names down. So then the next thing we knew we were being loaded aboard a
train to go to California! (I can’t remember this field at all! I mean the
NAME of it! And what the heck was the TOWN? What was the main town? I
can’t even remember that one now. California. California. It won’t come to
me.) But anyway, they had just built this little new airport, or flying base
there, and they had some B-25’s there, of course, then we were checked out
on these B-25’s, ALSO — that’s right — we were sent there for the purpose of
learning to drop — ah — now I can’t even think of THAT name! — these long
— torpedoes! Torpedoes! That’s right. That was the main purpose of our
being assigned there. And then, ah, we had to fly somewheres — a couple a
hundred miles south of th- — Hammer Field! Hammer Field! Hammer Field,
California! That’s the name of the place! Hammer Field, and then, ah, I
guess — the lake that we were practicing flying these missions on — (I can’t
remember that name either) but it was about two hundred miles south of
Hammer F- —Fresno, California! That’s right! Fresno!
So of course to pass the course, you had to — when you dropped your
torpedo, well, you — they had — you were aiming at a “ship”, you know, or —
supposedly a ship. It was a big powered barge or something with a — and to
make sure that you knew what everything was about, that torpedo had to go
right underneath that vessel, you know? The bubbles, of course, would show
it. But I finally passed that course, and the next thing I knew I had orders in
my hand to report to Alaska!
Carol: REALLY!
John: Elmendorf Air Force Base! [laugh]
Carol: Alaska! Did that surprise ya?
John: Oh! YES! We had NO idea! But see, that was after the
Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor and Unalaska. And they couldn’t
retaliate with what bombs they had on these — the Japanese fleet that had
been out there, so that’s why they went into this torpedo training. And that
was the last I ever SAW of a torpedo! [laugh!!] Was when I left Fresno,
John Hakala 18
California!! [laugh] I left the torpedoes behind! [laugh] And here they put
me through all that work for nothin’, you know? Well, maybe it helped me
out on my flying, anyway.
But anyway, when I got to Elmendorf, — yeah! — Yeah, they assigned
an airplane. It was a brand new airplane, too, by golly! That’s right! It had
been brought up through the ferry route, you know, from Montana, through
Canada, up through — I guess — Fairbanks, and then down. I guess that
was the route they flew them in those days. Well I had to take this new
airplane, and ah — and first, — swing the compass. And of course that was a
rather involved procedure with these big aircraft, you know. Like they have
now-a-days where you just — they set ‘em on a platform, and the platform
turns. Here we had to roll the airplane around to a new position all the
time, and get in there and start up the engines, and so you’d have all your
various magnetic forces working when you tried adjusting your compass, you
know. You had to go around and around a couple of times like that, and —
well, I finally got it to MY satisfaction, which I — which was what I figured
was right on the DOT, you know?
So then the next thing, well, let’s see! When was it? It was — I
arrived, by golly, in Anchorage — that’s right — December 7, 1941 —
Carol: Oh! Forty. . .
John: No! ‘42!
Carol: ‘43, probably.
John: No, ‘42! ‘42!
Carol: OH! Okay. ‘42! One year after. . .
John: One year after. That’s right. One year after Pearl Harbor! And I
took this aircraft, and I flew down to — well, I had a crew assigned to me,
too. And we flew down — I forget my first stop down there on the Alaskan
Peninsula. That air base isn’t there any more. [Port Heiden, Alaska.] No, it
must have been — it was, anyway, this side of the present —— Cold Bay!
Heck! All you have to do is think of the weather report! Cold Bay. And this
place that I first landed at was, again, about three, four miles — I mean
three, four hours, by air by — from Cold Bay. So the next day I flew into
Cold Bay, and then from Cold Bay I went down to this secret base which was
supposed to have been there — you know, — when the “Japs” came in? They
were there, of course, but that was on Umnak Island. And Umnak Island
John Hakala 19
now is all Native land. So we never hear anything more about Umnak — or
this air base that was there. Yeah.
Boy, I remember that WIND !! O-o-oh! When I landed there!! And all
that night we had to go out and struggle with those planes! They must have
been — I don’t know! What air speed — They could have been 70! 80! 90
miles an hour, you know? ‘Cause the airplanes themselves were [flying] —
we had ‘em tied down, we went off there, rolled gasoline drums and tied more
ropes to ‘em, tryin’ to keep ‘em down! And of course, just to GET there you
couldn’t see your way! You had to — the lead man took a line — a coil of
line, and unrolled it, you know, as he went, and the rest hung onto the line,
coming behind. And you couldn’t see a thing! That was my first REAL
experience with Alaskan weather! So . . . That Cold Bay, I’ll tell you! That
was a rough spot for wind!
Then I finally got to Umnak. There’s a special name for the base, but I
can’t remember that. [Fort Greely] But I arrived at Umnak on Christmas Eve!
Christmas Eve of ah, — what year did I say that was? — forty- — forty-TWO.
Forty-two. Yeah. Mmm-hmm. And of course we were weathered in there for a
few days, and they were in the process of building Adak at that time. That’s
right. We were held up there to wait until Adak opened. I mean until they
got that air strip in. When the weather cleared, off I went, then, for Adak. I
was assigned to the seventy-third bomb squadron, which, again, was at
Umnak. That base that I was leaving from. Adak was under the seventy-
SEVENTH bomber squadron — ‘25’s — but they sent me ahead, being a new
man, well, they put me on — oh, some kind of status, you know [detached
duty]—so I was flying for both.
Whenever the seventy-seventh was flying, I was flying with them; when the
seventy-third came down, I was flying with them, and again with the seventy-seventh,
you know? They kept me out there all this while, see? [chuckle,
laugh]
Carol: You were doing double duty!
John: [laugh] And, the best part of it was all my gol-darn logs were
practically lost because of that. I don’t have credit for half the hours that I
flew, you know? I was going through some of these magazines — not
magazines — write-ups on the Aleutian war, and what — it pertained
primarily to what the heavy bombers did, you know. But in between you
could get the picture of what the medium bombers were doing, too, but
John Hakala 20
nothing specific. But there was many a case where the B-17’s and the B-24’s
went out, we were right there with ‘em. But nothing was mentioned ever in
these reports, you know.
Carol: That’s strange. Why? Why did they do that?
John: Well, that’s what they — it was somebody keeping records just
for the heavy bombardment squadrons, see? But I knew I was on those
flights, because. . .
(Ah, what the heck! Where did I go off track here?) To Umnak on
Christmas Eve, then Adak, it was a few days later, whatever it was. And
then, of course, we were assigned our first bombing mission to Kiska. And it
was a — what was it? ! I guess it was three hours, three and a half hours —
something like that — to four hours one-way flight. It was a total of about
eight hours round trip. And . . .
Carol: What were you bombing? What were the bombing runs... I don’t
under- — I don’t — I haven’t read much about that. What kind of things
were you going to bomb?
John: OH! Well when — Unalaska was bombed at the same time the
Japanese went into Attu. They occupied Attu and Kiska with their army, you
know? And, of course, they started immediately building a big air field
there on Kiska. And this is what our primary object was — was to destroy
any resemblance of an air field that they could develop so that they couldn’t
get their heavy bombers in, ‘cause — this — this whole story would have
been different had they gotten them in there, see?
So anyway, we bombed Kiska. We bombed it repeatedly. We bombed it
in any kind of weather. We lost more airplanes from weather than we did
from, ah, the results of our raids. Although we did lose aircraft. I don’t say
that we didn’t lose any aircraft, but, ah, I know — I remember a few of the
aircraft that went down, but I can’t remember the people’s names... But
anyway, as soon as they became aware that the Japanese had these float
aircraft on Kiska, well, they immed- — the U.S. [Army] Air Corps —
immediately began planning to have a strip on Amchitka — put in a fighter
strip there to catch these float planes as they come around, you know —
these Japanese floats. ‘Cause if they would have gotten on wheels, then it
would have been a different story — which we prevented by blasting their, ah,
— whatever construction they had in progress, you know, on their air field.
John Hakala 21
And you know, they [the Sea Bees] did the same thing at Amchitka as
they did at Adak. They built a dam across an inlet, you know — a deep inlet,
and they pumped all that water out into the ocean. Then they filled, [as the
water drained, with volcanic debris from the adjacent mountain at the head
of the inlet] — that was the quickest way of makin’ an airstrip, see? And
then they laid some steel matting down on top of that, and they sent the
fighters in there. And the fighters were fortunate. They got there in time;
‘cause the “Japs” started flying their big — BIG float bombers, you know?
Float ships, or — I don’t know what they called them! But anyway, they were
in for a big surprise when these P-40’s hit ‘em, you know?
The NEXT thing I knew, I had orders in my hand to take my airplane
down there and land on this little fighter strip! [laugh] On Amchitka! To
bomb the Japanese from close range! [laugh]
So — that was the next thing that we did. We went down there, and
we flew off of that little fighter strip — full load of bombs, and, ah, I guess we
cut our gas back, because we didn’t need to have all THAT weight. But then
at the same time they were constructing a LARGE strip up above. They had
started the process anyway — for the medium bombers, and the heavy
bombers to use, you know?
By the time they got that strip open —Yeah. — See, we were living in
tents — dug in the side of these hillsides. Then I — well, just before this
airstrip opened — before we moved our aircraft up to the upper strip, well, we
got word that we were assigned a special [quilted] quonset-type hut [called a
Jamesway] that we had to haul down to a hole in the ground where —
somewheres out there in the tundra, you know, and, ah, and BUILD it, you
know. So that’s what we did.
Carol: Gee! This is still winter.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We did it then. [chuckle] We did it. [chuckle]
Well, we got fairly comfortable quarters after we finally got it up there.
Carol: Oh, I bet! A little better than tents.
John: It wasn’t a quonset hut — these metal quansits. This was a
fabric — ah — like a big [canvas] quilt that you draped over the framework,
you know? And it had wooden panels on each end, with a doorway stuck in
it, and ... But they were FAIRLY warm. You had a — an oil stove, I think it
was — NO,no, no, no. No, it was still a coal stove. Yeah, that’s right. There
John Hakala 22
was still a coal stove, and you had to pack in your coal, and — if you wanted
to be warm, you know.
Carol: [laugh] Where did the coal come from?
John: Well, they hauled it in with their freighters, to the harbor there.
‘Course all this activity was goin’ on — the Corps of Engineers was there,
building docks, and building all this stuff, and they were doing all this while
we were running these missions. See, I don’t know what was going on on-site
except MY phase of it — which was all combat.
There was a period of time then, that — from July — in July, where the
weather was socked in so bad that there was NO flying — until one day —
well, we had received reports that the Navy had had a big battle with the
Japanese fleet — outside of Kiska. And they — I forget how many battle
ships the U.S. Navy had there, but they had ‘em strung out in line, and they
kept on shootin’ these high-powered guns, you know, towards Kiska itself,
with — as they explained to me later, that — they said that they were seeing
these sightings with radar. And they were shootin’ at these radar sightings.
And they emptied out all this ammunition, they emptied out all their oil,
steaming back and forth, and shootin’ away, shootin’ away! And finally they
had to drop back a hundred or a hundred and fifty miles to the Southeast to
refuel and reload with ammunition. And it was then, when the Japanese
were out there with their fleet, that they came in to Kiska, and they
evacuated ALL their MEN! They — in less than an HOUR they had ‘em all
aboard, and they were going out! This came to light after the war, of course.
Nobody KNEW about this.
But anyway, this weather was all socked in solid, you know? And all of
a sudden, we got a report — I — well, actually, I’d been packing my briefcase
with all my maps, and all my accouterments, you know — my slip-sticks, and
my slides, and all that stuff — for figuring out the time/distance, and drift,
and all that. And I happened to have a — I don’t know HOW I had it in my
pocket, but I had a map of Alaska in my pocket, showing this road that went
from — where was it? — this road wasn’t — the Richardson Highway wasn’t
in yet — it was from Valdez to Fairbanks — THAT road. That dirt road, you
know? [pause]
Oh! I FORGOT to say: When I first arrived in Alaska, after I checked
out that plane?
Carol: Mm-hm.
John Hakala 23
John: I swung that compass?
Carol: Yeah?
John: Of course I had to check out the airplane, too. And, well, I did!
I checked out the airplane. I flew it, and I — that’s the first time I saw the
Kenai Peninsula, you know? Well, that’s right. Just previous to that, that
Fall before — it was ‘41 that the Kenai Moose Range was established by
executive order — by President Roosevelt! And I had said at that time, when
I saw this, and I was back there at Randolph Field, or Kelly Field, or ONE of
those places, where I saw this little item in my home-town newspaper — it
was a little piece, you know? I says, “BOY!! Wouldn’t THAT be a place to GO
to!!” [laugh] Yeah! And the first thing I did when I took off, you know, on
the [check-out] flight, I made this whole flight down to the Kenai Peninsula,
all the way to the end of Homer Spit, you know? Of course the maps we had
didn’t have ANY of this stuff on it. There was no Homer there! There was
NOTHING, you know? But I remember when I was coming back, I saw all
these MOOSE up there between Tustumena and Skilak Lakes, you know.
‘Course I didn’t even know the names of those two lakes, ‘cause all we had
was — all we operated with was Navy maps! And they were all WATER maps,
you know? Showing — showing the different fathoms! Not heights, you
know? [laugh]
But anyway, this one morning in July, — well, see, I’d been packin’ this
gol-darn case back and forth, and slogging through that MUD, and I think it
was about a mile and a half to where my abode was, the one we had built,
you know? So I said, well — see, I was going off duty. This was the last day
of my shift, to be on alert. I wouldn’t have to be sittin’ there on that flight
line, you know, come daylight — or — seven o’clock in the morning. So I
figured, “Why, SHUCKS! With this weather, the way it’s been holding, — no
aircraft could take off outa here, you know? So I go merrily back up there,
leave my bag at home. But I had this-here road map, for some reason, stuck
in my pocket! I don’t know HOW it was! I got there, and no sooner I got in
that tent, than that crank phone rang, you know, and “Pilots get ready!
You’re going out on an immediate mission” you know.
So — nothing I could do, but just get out to my aircraft, and check it
out — see that everything was [in working order], and — well, the lead pilot
had a navigator with him, but the weather was socked in so solid, when we
took off on the strip, I had to set my compass — not my magnetic — [a Gyro]
John Hakala 24
compass — so that I’d hold a straight course down the runway. I couldn’t
SEE anything. Took off, and I flew for pretty near four hours, just skipping
the waves, but we were told one course to head on after we got off the strip
— off the landing strip, you know. So I set that course up, and I tried flying
as close to the water as I could, so I was just seeing dimples out there. And
it was blowin’! And this fog was just SO thick! For four hours, I was just
flying instruments. And all of a sudden, I POPPED out into the clear — it
was just like an inverted bowl, you know? A huge inverted bowl. And up in
the corner, WA-AY up there, there was a Navy PBY flying. And that’s what we
were homing in on. And off to my [left], here, this [line] of ships! And these
must have been the same ships that had [left] Kiska, you know. They had
made that big circle, and they were coming — and this was toward the Kuril
Islands! This is how FAR [west] we were! We had flown all that way out
there, you know?
Carol: With nothin’ but your instruments!
John: [laugh]
Carol: GEE! Were they American ships, or Japanese ships?
John: NO! These were all Japanese ships! Well I, ah, — I didn’t
know who they were, but I figured that they had to be the enemy, because
that’s the only reason they sent us out there. ‘Course I was the left man on
the lead man’s — five-plane formation — I mean I was the left wingman. So
when he wobbled his wing, well, I peeled off, and I made for the one that I
saw. And he came after the next one, and then the next one followed on
down. Well anyway, I made this run on ‘em, and we had four five-hundred-pound
bombs. I came in — this is where those torpedoes maybe would’a
come in handy, but — but they superseded the torpedoes with the skip-bombing
— with five-hundred-pound bombs. I had four five-hundred-pound
bombs on, and came in, and we were spraying that deck, you know, back and
forth, with fifty-caliber machine-gun bullets, and of course, they’re shootin’
back at us, you know, and I remember I had all — I was pressing the [button
to the] machine guns with [the thumb of my left hand], and then [when we
were in bombing range] I started droppin’ the bombs [with my right thmb on
the other button at the heifght of 150 feet.] And I hit that ship! I must have
hit ‘em with three bombs, right in the side, you know? They skipped off the
water. But the fourth bomb hit the deck. And the next thing I — as soon as
— ‘course I had to [pull] up and go over that ship, you know? And I heard my
John Hakala 25
tail-gunner holler, [over my earphones], he says, “TURN! TURN! TURN!
That bomb is coming right after us!!” And I turned, I dumped the [left] wing,
and I turned it as hard as I could, you know? And I swung around, and all I
saw, was a BIG — ‘course, in that turn, all of a sudden we [BOUNCED] up
and down, when that bomb had burst in the air, and of course it riddled my
aircraft a little, too, but nobody was injured. But then, as I turned around
looking down. . . [pause] That ship was GONE! Just that fast!! It was ALL
GONE! And I can’t remember how — it was a LARGE ship, because when I
popped up over it, well, there must have been a hundred feet over on this
end, and a hundred feet over — or MORE, you know — on that end. It was
that big a ship — I mean, ah, from MY [view]point of seeing it — [comparing it
with] the wings of MY aircraft, see? And it just [pause] It was just [pause]
so ASTONISHING, I couldn’t believe it! There wasn’t a sign of . . . [the ship]
just a so- — swirl — a — big swirl of water! So I must have hit their
magazine, and the whole thing must’a blown [and it went down instantly.]
Carol: And it blew up their stuff.
John: Mm-hm. Well anyway, I climbed up to wait for the others, and
the others were having problems. Their bombs wouldn’t drop! One fella even
crawled in the bomb bay to try to drop the bombs from the bomb bay, and
they couldn’t get ‘em loose. They may have — mine was the only ship that
dropped the bombs on that whole flight! They had to finally — well, after
they made so many passes, they used up so much gas, that there was no way
that they were gonna get back to Amchitka, and I knew that myself. So I pull
out this map then, while I was up there flying around, waiting for ‘em. I laid
it out in front of me, and I — I drew this line from — with that heading that
I’d left Amchitka on. And I estimated my time, you know — time and
distance. I made a spot over there where — and then I, ah, figured out,
“Now where would Attu be?” ‘Cause I wanted to get — what I wanted to do
was find Attu and crash-land on the beach, see?
At the same time, Attu was being, ah, invaded. Yeah. The American
troops had gone in — into Attu. That’s right. ‘Course! I had flown a couple
a missions there prior to that — that’s right. I was dumping bombs on Attu
also from Amchitka, you know. But now this flight I was going — went out to
the Kuril Islands in Northern Japan!!
So I made this point, and — I don’t know what I used — did I use a
string, or what, — but I drew a line. I had the co-pilot scratch a line, and we
John Hakala 26
estimated time and distance to get to Attu, and when that time was up, I
figured, well, I’m gonna either run into that island, or else I’ve missed it
completely, and it was all socked in again! See, as soon as you left this
“bowl,” you were back in that solid fog! You’re flying instruments the whole
while! You couldn’t see anything ahead of you ... [and the wind was blowing
so hard that I was flying at a right angle to the wind with my right wing
pointing in the direction I had estimated would bring me to Attu. After my
estimated time of arrival had been reached, I was afraid of running into rock
cliffs or mountains, so] — I called to my squadron. I said, “I’m going up to
see what it’s like on the top,” I says, “see if I can see any mountain peaks.”
So they all followed me up. We were all strung out up there. We came out at
eleven thousand feet above this, ah, this MESS, you know — this mist, and
fog, and [swirling] clouds, and everything. It was all just one big mass! We
came out of it, and I immediately went into a 360° turn, and called my radio
operator to let out his trailing antenna, and send out a “May-Day” requesting
directions to the nearest land, which we figured was Attu Island, as we could
not see any mountain peaks or anything above this overcast. This signal, I
learned afterwards, had been picked up in southeast Alaska, somewheres —
whether by a private individual, or a Federal installation such as the [Army]
Signal Corps, or one of the military establishments, I don’t know. But it was
transferred to Juneau immediately, and from Juneau to Elmendorf Air Force
Base, and from there down to Admiral Kinkaid’s office in — where he was
located in Kodiak — Kodiak being the headquarters for the Navy. They, in
turn, had sent the message to their forces, which were lying off of Attu, and
apparently the message was gotten by this destroyer, who immediately went
out and began broadcasting on that emergency [network], and kept it in line
with the emergency field that was then under construction.
We circled for at least fifteen minutes — possibly more. I had turned
on my radio compass, and finally the needle began wiggling. I settled it
down, and immediately began — well, first I notified the rest of the aircraft
that were in the air that I was going to descend on this heading, which was a
special [emergency frequency] that the Navy used for directional guidance.
So we began to descend through this solid mass of clouds. I couldn’t believe
it when I got down to zero feet in elevation, that I could not see the waves on
the ocean. I still was afraid of running into mountains, but I held this
course, since this was the course that had been indicated on the radio
John Hakala 27
compass. Finally, after the altimeter caught up to my level, that showed me
that I was down below — at least a thousand feet below sea level, I began to
pick up a few white spots underneath me, which indicated cresting waves.
So I started leveling off. And no sooner I leveled off, there in front of me all
of a sudden appeared this HUGE GRAY MASS — hidden in this swirling mist
and fog and black clouds. I immediately pulled my wheel back, and swung
over it. And here was this destroyer! I says, “Well what do I do NOW?” you
know? I kept on the same direction that — after I got over that destroyer, I
was back on the water. I kept on that same direction. All of a sudden,
beneath me was a strip of LAND, you know? It was the north end of, ah, —
what’s the name of that harbor? — Massacre Bay! Massacre Bay on the east
side of Attu! Well, I didn’t know it, not having ever BEEN there, you know?
And my eyes just popped outa my head! I saw MEN down there , you know,
with TRACTORS! They were makin’ an air strip! And they had about a
thousand feet — I saw outa the corner of my eye as I went over this, there
was what I estimated was about a thousand feet of steel matting laid
already, you know? So as SOON as I crossed that strip, I put myself in a
timed turn, one needle-width wide on my [Gyro Compass], you know, I HELD
it there, made a two-hundred and seventy degree turn, and I started
dropping down, and I — Oh, that’s right! I — Yeah, yeah, yeah. — Well, I
was IN that turn — towards the END of it. And I ordered, “Wheels down.”
And the wheels just dropped and HUNG! They just HUNG, and FLOPPED
there. So I immediately told them, “Let’s start pumpin’!” So we pumped, and
we pumped, and we pumped. ‘Course I had to fly the plane. And we got
straightened out — I was just into that two-seventy degree turn, I could see
just ahead of me, that I was just lined up with — exactly with what was
there ahead of me, you know, on the end of this strip? And just then I
heard, “CLICK! [pause] CLICK!” as we were pumping, you know. And then
finally — finally the THIRD “CLICK!” for the nose wheel! And as I came in, I
pulled up my nose, and the wheels set down — I got as close to the edge of
that strip as possible — and my ENGINES quit! So the only thing I could do
then was, I jammed my rudder — right rudder — as HARD as I could, so that
— I knew these other airplanes were following me — and I scooted off that
metal into this — well, it’s all volcanic ash — very soft, you know. But
fortunately it didn’t wreck my front wheel. But see, I had forgot to say that
John Hakala 28
all my hydraulics — all my hydraulics had been shot off. That’s why I was
doing this, see?
Carol: But you could pump it...?
John: Yeah. I could pump. Because there was — in the big tank
where all the hydraulic fluid was kept there was a small tank — just for this
purpose — in case you had a bad leak — so that you may have sufficient
[fluid] to get your wheels down. But I didn’t have enough for flaps, see? But
anyway I didn’t need those flaps, ‘cause the engines quit right there, and
that’s where I would have been sittin’ if I hadn’t scooted off the runway,
‘cause I was out of gasoline!
Carol: WOW!
John: Well, anyway, for thirteen days I sat on that island. WE sat on
that island.
Carol: Everybody else made it in, too, huh?
John: Yeah, they all came in. I mean, let’s see — NO, no! The flight
leader — he had tried to get back — he had the navigator. He thought he
could get back to Amchitka. The navigator brought him to the north end of
Kiska, and of course they sent out a “May-day” there, too, I guess, when they
went down. They ran out of gas on the north end of Kiska, and went down in
the ocean. But the best part was: a Navy PBY was right there to save ‘em!
Think of it! Boy, I’ll tell ya, that Navy did some wondrous things with their
ninety-mile-an-hour aircraft — those huge [PBY] boats, you know?
Carol: So they heard the “May-day,” and they just zipped over there?
John: Yep, yep. They got over there, and they got ‘em. They may have
been in life rafts by that time. I don’t know. I don’t know what the full
extent was, but anyway, they picked ‘em up! But then there was — so that
left four ships: myself, and then the three others — yeah — mm-hm. So
there was four of us on Attu, then, that waited. Until the weather — so-called
weather “cleared.” And they sent — ‘course we got messages then to
Amchitka that — what we needed for repairs, you know? And of course they
sent up an aircraft with these repairs the first break in the weather they got,
but as soon as that aircraft got up to [chuckle] — or LEFT Amchitka, well, the
weather [became] socked in at Amchitka! This is the way it is in the
summer, you know. And they got into Attu, and we got the repair parts, but
then the fellow that flew that airplane in was — some Captain — he says,
“You’re assigned to take this aircraft back to Amchitka.” (You know, the one
John Hakala 29
that he came with.) “I’m to stay here and get this thing repaired.” ‘Course
they wanted time — they wanted time to be in the combat zone. I mean on
the GROUND, you know!
Carol: [laugh] Not COMBATING, just...
John: NO! Just — BE there! But anyway, well, we loaded up with
gasoline, and we took off! And no sooner we took off, we hit this weather!
So instead of flying into it, I decided to fly above it. So I climbed up, and I
came out again at maybe twelve thousand feet, twelve thousand five hundred
feet, and I was headed for Amchitka first, but it was socked in solid. There
were no radio communications with Amchitka at that time, so — although
they could hear us when we, you know, called, but they couldn’t send
messages back to us. So I just told them that I’m continuing on to Adak. I
flew to Adak, and here at Adak they had set up some — I forget ...— “cone of
silence” that you could direct yourself in with your radio compass, and — but
here, again, it was all socked in to the water. Well, the Cone of silence gave
you a position point over the air field where you could figure out your course,
then your glide down to the ocean, and what course you’re to follow to come
back on that air strip, see? Well, I tried it twice. The first time I went down
to a thousand feet below sea level on my altimeter. The second time I went
down to fifteen HUNDRED feet! And I still couldn’t see water. In that short
distance — there was a big change in the barometric pressure. ‘Course if I
had been out of gas, I’d have kept on going down. You know, if I had been to
that critical point. But I was afraid — I knew darn well there were these
mountains right ahead of me — that I would be flying into them at any time.
So I refused. I went back up, and I started east again. I was heading then
for Unalaska. — Yeah. Yeah, I figured that I’d try to get to Unalaska, {though
I didn’t have enough gas for the trip.] I’d gotten up above that whole mess
again — I think it was — it was the same height, I guess, around twelve
thousand feet, twelve thousand five hundred, somewhere around there. I
was proceeding east, all of a sudden to the southeast of me, I saw this black
— ah — ah — what appeared to be a black — I don’t know what it — what it
signified to me, but it was BLACK. I moved over to look at it. And BY
GOLLY! There was a HOLE — ALL the way down to the WATER!! And you
should’a seen me when I — I took off, I — I just — like a screw, you know?
Goin’ DOWN! I’ll tell ya! As fast as I could, and I got outa there, and I
leveled off on the water, — and I was on the east end of Atka! It was the
John Hakala 30
first island of — east of Adak! And as I came around the point, I couldn’t
believe it! During those fifteen days that I’d been on — ah — well, of course
all the while I’d been on Amchitka, too, — but the Sea Bees — again, see,
the Sea Bees were building that strip up there on Massacre Bay. They were
the Sea Bees that were doing that. Here they had put in another metal mat
in this cove. The [Navy] had been using this cove as a refueling site for all
their PBY’s that were out on station. And then they put that strip in just so
they could get supplies in quicker if they needed ‘em, you know? And I saw
these — couple of ships out there, which were the ones that did the
refueling of these PBY’s, and I saw a few PBY’s floatin’ on the water, but
then I saw that STRIP! And boy, I’ll tell you, there was no happier person in
this world! I’ll tell you! We went in there, and we set down, — [and then we
were socked in by weather] again. We were THERE for three days, and —
NOW! That brings to mind! — Mothers’ day was [coming] in a couple of days!
And this was one of the only places outside of Kiska where they had had a
weather station. The Japanese, when they went [into Kiska], captured those
weathermen, you know. There were seven or eight of them that were in there
on Kiska, and this was the second point where they had set up a weather
station with broadcasting facilities. And at the top of this one mountain
behind the airstrip, well, they had this radio station. It was — it was a
signal corps station. That’s right. It was a signal corps station — it was
military. It was part of the Army. I’m pretty sure it was part of the Army.
But anyway, they had this station there, and we went for a hike one of those
days that we were weathered in there, and climbed up to it, and this signal
corps man, whoever he was — I can’t even remember what his face looked
like. But anyway, he told us , he said that, “Would you fellas want to send
flowers to your mothers?” THINK of it!! For MOTHERS’ DAY?!
Carol: Oh MAN! I bet that’d make your mother...
John: Oh! I gave him — well, he said the charge’d be fifteen dollars. I
gave him fifteen dollars, and he took down the address! HA! Isn’t that
something?! [laugh]
Carol: That’s AMAZING!! Did your mother just about DIE?!
John: Oh, I — I didn’t hear. I mean, ah, — well, I MAY have, but I
can’t remember, you know.
Carol: Oh! I bet she just... ‘Course she couldn’t KNOW how...
John: Yeah. Where it was from! [laugh] Oh, golly!
John Hakala 31
But anyway, we took off from there, then, and went back to Amchitka
when the weather opened up. Then how did it go? Oh yeah! We resumed,
supposedly, bombing of Kiska. That’s right. Next weather that was clear
enough to go to Kiska they had a tremendous — see, at this time Attu had
been taken already, and of course they had all these troops. They figured
that they might as well finish up the job and clear out Kiska at the same
time, since they had the Navy out there. And of course they had all this
preprogrammed already, and it was all in action. ‘Course I didn’t know it.
Carol: You were just told where to fly, and...
John: Just told where to fly and what to do, you know? So I was in on
this here bombing run, and everybody that came back said that, “Boy, those
‘Japs’ were shootin’ at us,” and, why, shucks! There wasn’t a thing shot at
us, you know? I said, “There was no flak, there was no NOTHING, you
know?” And I told ‘em, I said, when I got back to be debriefed, I told ‘em, I
says, “There isn’t a single ‘Jap’ left on that island.” I says, “You ...” They
wouldn’t believe me. I says, “Ok. Load up my airplane with gasoline. I’ll
take a volunteer crew, I’ll fly it right in there. I’ll fly at deck level, and I’ll
show you.” Which I did. I got back. No sooner I got outa that airplane, my
mouth was sealed! They had orders for me and my crew. They put me aboard
an airplane to ship us to Elmendorf.
Carol: Why??
John: Well, so that the word wouldn’t get out that the “Japs” had
evacuated! Here this whole — all this big troop movement was in force that
they’re gonna go through with it, you know?
Carol: Oh MAN!
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Carol: So they all got there to an empty island, huh?
John: Yeah, they got there to an empty island, but the Canadians
came from the west, up through this valley, and the Americans came from
the east, up through that valley, and here they slaughtered each other — in
that valley!
Carol: [gasp] You’re KIDding!!
John: Why, sure! They each thought the other were the Japanese!
[laugh]
Carol: That is HORRIBLE!! Whoa! And why didn’t they want you to
say? ‘Cause they just... wanted...
John Hakala 32
John: Well, that whole — well, everything is under military security,
you know? They didn’t want any word to get out that this whole big
movement — ‘course, ah — I couldn’t PROVE that there weren’t any “Japs” in
those hills. But there were nothing down there on the flats. I saw that dog
that those weathermen had had. I saw HIM running around down there. I
was that low that I passed over the . . . [interruption]
So anyhow, I got back to Elmendorf, yeah. I was held there — we were
held there in, ah, incommunicado for a couple of weeks, until this whole
situation had developed at Kiska, you know.
Carol: UNbelievable!
John: And then finally they handed me and my crew orders to return to
the states. And see, I was assigned to the seventy-third bomb squadron,
and I had been flying for the seventy-seventh. And all — all my flying records
were mismatched. I — I don’t have credit for practically NOTHING, you
know? It’s — ALL the flying I did! [chuckle]
Carol: Unbelievable!
John: And then to top it off, the seventy-third bomb squadron — as
soon as I hit the states — was deactivated!
Carol: OH, MAN! Why?
John: I don’t know. That — that was the big question in my mind!
Why did they deactivate it? But the seventy-third bomb squadron was no
more! Well, anyway, I got back home. I remember, first, we landed in
Seattle. We hadn’t had anything green for so many MONTHS — YEARS, and
that. We went to the — well, the hotel we where in, we went down to the
dining room, and we each ordered a whole head of lettuce! A WHOLE HEAD
of LETTUCE!! I’ll tell you! And we chewed on that lettuce! BOY!! That was
the BEST TASTING STUFF!! O-OH! I’ll tell you! It was WONDERFUL! M-M-M-
M-M-M-M-M!!!!!! That meat and stuff they had, they can push that aside!
That lettuce took precedence! I’ll tell you!!
Well, anyway, I finally got back home. I flew from Seattle to
Minneapolis, had to spend the night at Minneapolis, ‘cause there was no air
transportation to home. I had to take a bus. So I had to wait till the
following morning, so I sent a telegram to my folks sayin’ that [poignant
pause] — how did I word it? Oh. “Your prodigal son returns.” [bittersweet
laugh] That I was arriving on the following evening, you know, at a certain
John Hakala 33
time — that’s, anyway according to the bus schedule. Sure enough, I made it
on time.
So then from there I went back to ...What the heck was it?
Carol: Well now when you were deactivated, did that mean you weren’t
IN the service any more?
John: NO NO! NO! I was in the service. It was just the squadron!
No! I was transferred. I was transferred back stateside. But the squadron I
was in was deactivated. So then I don’t know where my records went from
there, or if the seventy-seventh ever turned them over to the seventy-third,
or what. But I never — my flight records didn’t conform to what I had, you
know, in my little book that I scratched every time I flew.
(What the heck happened then?) Oh! I remember I had to go down to
[San Antonio], Texas. (What the heck did I have to do in Texas?) Oh! OK!
For a PHYSICAL! Yeah! They flew me — no, how did that go? I had to travel
to Texas, (that’s right), to have this physical. Then they reassigned me —
no, they sent me to Tampa Bay, Florida, for reassignment! Then — I mean —
all this scattering of stuff, you know? And from Tampa Bay, they sent me
right back to Greenville, South Carolina! [LAUGH, LAUGH!]
Carol: [laugh] Goin’ around in circles!
John: [laugh, laugh] Aw, gee!! And when I got to Greenville, they said,
“Well, that — bozo doesn’t want to do any more FLYING,” you know, — that’s
— they ASSUMED!!
Carol: Without askin’ ya.
John: Yeah. They assigned me to, ah, as a battalion commander of a
black troop of — black troops — ah — on a bombing range. So I was in
charge of this detachment of black troops, you know? Battalion sized — on
this bombing range. And that was located — ( now where was it?) — was it
still in South Carolina, or was that in North Carolina? It was right close to
the boarder, anyway, I forget which. It was in a National Forest — in the
center of a National Forest where they had this bombing range set up. And
— well, I went there, and when I saw the conditions these troops were
working under, I thought I’d improve their conditions. I set up a rec-room for
‘em, with pool tables, and all this stuff, you know? And I set up a PX —
that’s the word: PX — I was trying to figure out that word — PX. But they
wouldn’t — the military wouldn’t finance it. So I financed it. I had the
construction done by the battalion carpenters, and that, and it was right in
John Hakala 34
the buildings themselves. [quietly] But the bad part was [pause] (How many
months was I there? I can’t even remember that.) I was there through
Christmas. That’s right. It was in January. January they must have had a
blast! I mean, somewheres — these Negro troops, I mean the black troops.
They came back to the station, and they wrecked the whole place! They tore
down the door to the PX, and they scattered — well, not SCATTERED — not
only scattered — they removed all the — everything that was in there, and
they — the pool tables were dumped over, all the felt, you know, was ripped,
and torn, and all that! So I figured up the damage, you know? I first called
them all together, when I first saw this, I had the whole troop lined up. I
told ‘em what the situation was, that I had set this up for them, thinkin’ that
I was helpin’ ‘em out, makin’ it easier for their time away from home, to have
these things available to them: their cigarettes, and their pop, and whatever
they wanted, you know — their candy bars, and all that? Why, shucks! It
was well-stocked! And I told ‘em, I said that, if those responsible will step
forward, that I — I’d accept the financial loss — you know — of all this —
that I’d have that pool table repaired outa my own pocket. Nobody would
move. Not a single man would move. I says, “I know ALL of you aren’t
involved in this — or WEREN’T involved in this. It was just a few individuals
that came in drunk, you know?” But nobody would step forward and say
anything. So I said, “OK.” I said, “The next payday you can just figure that
it’s gonna be ALL deducted from your pay.” I says, “I’ve got a total here. I’ve
got it divided up so that each man of you will pay — each your share — since
you don’t want to state who did it, or anything about it.” Well, then, this
caused a BIG RUCKUS back at the base, you know! That Chaplain! You
should have seen the Chaplains coming! Every — Here that ogre’s taking it
out on these black troops, you know? So when the payroll did come, I just —
course everybody was there — I mean the Chaplains, the — they had set up
some Majors, and all that, to observe this thing, see? And I — I just counted
out their money as — I deducted it from ‘em as each one on my sheet of
paper told me to deduct, and I says, “Fine. It’s all settled.” So the next
thing I know, the Colonel of the base comes up — shortly, you know — to see
what the results were. And, ah, ‘course they just come up to — they have a
special meal all the time that you put on for visiting troops, you know? And
as we were sittin’ there at the dining table, I turned to the Colonel I said
that, ah, “How long would it take me to — How long would it take to have me
John Hakala 35
transferred back to flying?” He looked at me — — — see, prior to this — to
keep your rating up, you had to get in so many hours over a two- or three-month
period — of flying. And I couldn’t get that in. But when I’d go into the
main base, to — well, like on business, like gettin’ that payroll, and all that
stuff, I had to do that on my — personally, on my own. ‘Course they’d — the
military truck would drive me there and bring me back. But then a couple of
times — or no, just one time. That’s right. It just occurred one time — I
knew my three month period was over — that I’d be losing out on my flying
status if I didn’t get a flight in. So I went down to my old squadron that I
had been in, and I asked, “Is there any chance of getting some flying in? Do
you have a long cruise — night cruise, or something, you know — mission
that — training mission that I could accompany, as copilot, or whatever?”
And they put me on right away! I flew down to Texas, you know? And I came
back, and I had my time, you know? I held my flight status! But as soon as I
got back to the base, well, this underling, now, of the Colonel’s, you know —
the Lieutenant Colonel — the Executive Officer — that’s right! (That’s what I
was there at Kelly field. I was the “Executive Officer!” [laugh] So we can go
back to that cassette and put in “Executive Officer!” [laugh]) He had me
there. He had me on the rug! Oh, boy, did he chew me out! And he was —
he wasn’t a flying officer, see? And of course the Colonel, himself, wasn’t a
flying officer. He was from World War One days from France, you know. So I
had made up my mind, then, after I got this chewin’ out. I put in an official
application: “Immediate transfer” you know — to — back to flying status,
after I knew I had the status still. Otherwise I’d have had to go through
another big training — retraining program. So I put this through, and, you
know, the Colonel approved it immediately! Within a — I don’t think it was a
WEEK, I was gone from — as soon as they got a replacement for me at this
bombin’ range, I was OUTA THERE! I was back to Greenville, South Carolina!
[laugh]
Carol: Welcome home! [laugh]
John: But then as I came — when I got in there, I reported to
whatever “casual” group I had to report to, they told me, they said, that “You
have to get your own crew.” They said, “We don’t have any men available
except the ‘discards’ over here in this one, ah, one [laugh] quonset — or
building,” you know, for the fellas that hadn’t been assigned, and had been
eliminated from other crews, you know, all the old “[rejects]” — SO-called
John Hakala 36
“has-beens.” Well, I went over there, and I checked with them, talked to
them, and I finally picked out a copilot, navigator — ‘course the navigator —
there was only one navigator, and I wasn’t gonna take him, anyway, but [he
was] the only one there — I had to have a full crew, so I had to take him. I
took an engineer, a radio man, and a tail-gunner — yeah. I got all five — I
got the whole crew. So I proceeded to indoctrinate ‘em back into flying. And,
of course, reindoctrinating myself, too. And, ah, we were doing a lot of
bombing on that bombing range, too! [laugh] Which I had left, you know.
They knew when Hakala was up there, though! [laugh] All the black troops
[laugh] I was gonna tell one of ‘em, I said, “I’m gonna put this down your
gizzard.” [laugh] But I didn’t. I had pity on ‘em.
But then, ah, (how was it?) Oh yes! As soon as I — yeah. Yeah. As
soon as I completed my check-out flights, and I’d run the course that
needed to be done, I’d flown instruments, had come in on instrument
landing, and checked out in all my various activities that I had to check out
in, well, I immediately applied for transfer overseas. So they looked at me,
and they said, “What’s wrong with you?” [laugh] I says, “I want to get outa
HERE!” So next thing I knew, we were aboard a train heading back to
California.
Carol: Now this is in ‘43.
John: This is in ‘43. NO! ‘43 — This is ‘44! This was ‘44! And it was
during this interval, when I had been at home — see, my wife was the best
friend of my younger sister. And their 40 [acres] was just opposite ours, you
know, just a fence line was between us, but I had paid no attention to her
whatsoever all these years, you know, till I got back to Ironwood, and, of
course, being, ah, wanting to see, ah, (oh, what do you call the) —
“excitement” of the town, decided to go into Ironwood itself, and there was
only one little place open for eating, and they served, maybe, some beer and
wine. So I had gone into this place — that’s the ONLY place open in
Ironwood! That’s what kinda town it is, see? And, ah, while I was in there
sittin’ down, in walks a former teacher of mine from my younger days, and he
comes over with his wife, which I had known sometime in the past, too. But
they called me over to their booth, that’s right. They were sittin’ down.
When they saw me, they called me over to their booth, that’s right. I
suppose we were doin’ a little talkin’, and that, and all of a sudden I turned
and looked, and in the door came two ladies — two young ladies. One was
John Hakala 37
the sister of the wife of this teacher — former teacher of mine, — and the
other one was, ah, my later wife, Mae! And I hadn’t seen her since —well,
she was a snotty-nosed little brat, you know? That’s about the size of it, you
know? And here she’s a young lady, you know?! I says, “HO-ly SMOkers!!” I
got up, and I went to there, and I invited her over to the table, too, you know.
Of course, she would have come over there with — being the sister of the
other one — with the sister of the other one. Anyway, that started our [life]
together, but then in between times, she got ill. She got very ill. [quietly]
That’s another story. . .
But anyway, I, ah, shipped out to Sacramento, California, where I
picked up a brand new bomber — checked it out — had to swing those
compasses again, you know? But this time it was on a rotating platform, you
know? It was NICE! It was a quick job! Oh, golly! [laugh] It wasn’t like up
here at Elmendorf! Oh! MAN!! It took time and muscle! And, ah, I got the
aircraft all checked out, and took it out on a couple of maiden flights, and
had long-range tanks installed in it. Everything seemed to be hunky-dory.
They gave me my orders, and — (what time was it in the morning?) — I think
it was one o’clock — one o’clock in the morning I took off from Sacramento,
California, to head for the Phillip- — to head for the Hawaiian Islands. And
before I got half-way, of course, we had to transfer gas from the extra tanks
that we had installed to our wing tanks, where it could be used, you know?
Well, the pump wouldn’t work! So I had to turn around! GOLLY!! I’ll tell
you, was I disappointed!! I had to turn around and go all the way back to
Sacramento! Then I had to fly for hours up there, just doing NOTHing, you
know, trying to get the weight of my load down, so that I could land safely!
So then the next night, we did the same thing again! And we had to come
back! The fuel pumps wouldn’t work! They worked on the ground. I told ‘em
— and they worked before — I made SURE they worked before we took off!
But when we got over there where we needed to transfer gas — they flicked
on, and they went out! So — back we went again!! TWICE now! Now the
THIRD time, I said, “Now THIS is IT!” [laugh] And the same — well, — yeah.
But then we took off — or I took off — WE took off — the whole crew. No!
There — there was just — we had sent a couple of fellas ahead. I don’t know
if they went by water, or if they had flown by other military transportation.
Could have been other military — I don’t recall. But there was myself, my
copilot, my [so-called Navigator], and my — was it the radio man? — yeah!
John Hakala 38
NO! The radio man didn’t accompany me. My engineer accompanied me.
That’s right! Mm-hm. So there were three of us. Two were sent by other
transportation. That was, again, to lighten the load.
Well, the second take-off was the same thing, but when I came back,
my wheels wouldn’t fall — wouldn’t drop! I put the lever down, — nothing!
Anyway, the signal light still showed red — that they weren’t locked, you
know? So, I — (how was it?) — No, it was the NOSE wheel that wasn’t
locked! That’s right! The nose wheel wouldn’t lock. The other wheels
indicated locked. So I called in, and I told them, I said that “Well, I’ll bump
this thing along the runway, and see if I can’t make that nose wheel lock.”
So I came in a couple of times and bumped the bomber down the runway, you
know, and the light wouldn’t change, so then I finally called them, I said,
“Well, you’d better spread some foam out there,” and I said, “I’m gonna come
in anyway. And if that nose wheel collapses, well, at least we’ll have
something greasy to slide on, you know? It wouldn’t wreck the WHOLE
airplane.” So — came in and landed, and — NOTHing! It was just the gol-dang
electrical malfunction! [laugh]
Carol: It was working, but you just didn’t know it.
John: Yeah! It just didn’t show it was working, you know? [laugh] The
red light was on!
TAPE #2 SIDE B
Well, we had to stay that evening until around one o’clock in the
morning at Sacramento. I forget what the name of the military base was, but
this was my third try now to get to the Hawaiian Islands. Everything checked
out. The plane checked out well. We took off, got half-way to the mid-point.
Gas was transferred nicely. We passed over the mid-point ship, which we
had homed in on, — it was anchored out there in mid-Pacific. Then we
turned our course toward Oahu — the Hawaiian Islands. We made our way,
and as we were proceeding, we could see the gas gauge just lowering itself,
and nothing visible in front of you. The weather had been fine all night, and
all of a sudden I saw the largest island. I think it’s where the — I forget the
name of it, but I could see that coming over the horizon, and I was looking at
my gas gauge, and I figured I’d head directly for this largest island. I knew
Oahu was off to my right more, but I wanted to be sure I’d be in the range of
a beach for an emergency landing, because apparently my aircraft was using a
lot more gasoline than normal. [interruption?] Until I made out what I figured
John Hakala 39
was Diamond Head appearing on Oahu. So I turned the airplane towards
Oahu for Diamond Head, and as I approached, I was maybe an hour and a
half out still, my gas needles were both on zero, so I dropped my flaps, lifted
up the tail, reduced speed, and just worked along until I got around Diamond
Head. I sent out an SOS in case we went down in the water. Fortunately,
being in that attitude, it was draining all the gas forward, so that it was all
going into the fuel lines and into the carburetor, where it was needed. We
made it all the way to the mouth of where Pearl Harbor came out, and we had
to swing right then, a hundred eighty degree [turn] to make a landing at the
Air Corps base there. We landed, and immediately a vehicle was in front of
us, and scooted us off to a parking area, and we had to sit in the airplane
and buzz-bomb the inside of the airplane for an hour. ‘Course all this while
I’d shut the engines down. Then the tow truck came, after an hour, and
towed us to the regular parking area. And I had the mechanic, who came
over to the plane, I asked him specifically to check exactly the amount of gas
I had left in those tanks. Which he did. Later on I learned the total was ten
gallons in both tanks! So you can see how close — without having my —
[laugh] how close we were! And we were supposed to have had long-range
carburetors on our aircraft for this flight, so something had gone wrong. But
anyway, we made it. We spent the night there, and — well, no. It was — we
had arrived — it must have been around noon. That’s right. We spent, then,
that afternoon and the night there sleeping. I remember sleeping. We got
up at — for an early breakfast the following morning, and then we were
supposed to take off for Christmas Island, which was due south of Hawaii.
So I went out to the plane after we had our breakfast, ran it up, checked it
out, everything seemed to be functioning properly, so we got aboard, and we
took off, and headed south. We weren’t — well, we had reached the point of
— where we had to transfer gasoline again, and the same thing occurred. So
the red lights came on, no pump working, so we had to turn back to Oahu!
When I arrived there, well, they made me — made us fly — stay in the air for
close to three and a half hours, so it reduced the weight of the airplane for
landing on their airstrip. And when we got — taxied back to the parking area,
the only thing that was wrong was the electrical connections!
Carol: Oh, gee! So you could have made it.
John: Yeah. Well, we couldn’t make it, no! Because the gas didn’t
transfer.
John Hakala 40
Carol: Oh! Oh! The electrical connections wouldn’t allow it!
John: Mm-hm. So the following morning we did the same thing. But
this time I was determined I was going to get through! So even though a
front had been predicted, they had stated that it wouldn’t be a very solid
front. It’d be a very narrow strip that we’d have to cross through in our
southerly direction. But as I approached this front, it kept on getting blacker
and blacker! And I started climbing. I’d been flying down at nine hundred
feet. I climbed to five thousand feet, and looked for an opening through the
front, running down the face of it. I saw what I thought was a light ahead of
me, so I swung the airplane into it to cross over to the other side. And
instead, I must have hit very close to the center of the storm! Because the
next thing we knew, we were up at fifteen thousand feet — and this was —
the altimeter had not been catching up to us rapidly as we had rose, and the
next thing we were plunging down — straight down for the water, and it was
raining so solidly that the inside of the plane was just as though we had —
nothing between us and the elements! It was just POURING rain inside the
plane, and here I was on instruments! Flying those instruments, that —
part — well, one time I know for sure we were even laying on our back! It
had flipped us over, and I got it back straightened out, and we were — I was
VERY happy, though, that the engines didn’t sputter! They kept on running,
even though I had — I had reduced power when we had started these ups
and downs. We had gone up and down at least five times, and all of a
sudden we broke out into the clear! And this is when my navigator — the
one that I had picked up at one of the excess [Baggage”] — refused to do any
more as far as navigating! So I just reached over and switched on my radio
compass as I had done there in the Alleutians, and I let the needle swing
around while I kept the course that I had previously been flying until that
needle started working, and by — before long, it swung over, and I turned the
airplane, and within a [couple of hours] or so, I don’t remember how long it
was, but there was Christmas Island! We landed, and parked, and got off the
plane. A Major came up to me, and he saluted me, and he said, “Major
Baun!” I says, “No, Sir,” I says, “It’s Lieutenant Hakala!” [laugh] I must
have looked like Major Baun, you know. [laugh]
We spent one full day at Christmas Island, and then we took off to go
westward. We left — I forget what day, our dates, what time it was as far as
the leaving part, but we were following the reverse course of Amelia Earhart.
John Hakala 41
And we flew — actually, I found out later I’d flown over the same islands
where she had been reported missing — in that general vicinity. So I was
flying her course, only in reverse. My next stop was Tarawa, then Guadle
Canal, then another point on New Guinea — I can’t remember the name of
the strip, but it was across from Tarawa, where the Japanese had their big
installation, and of course we were flying without any protection. We had no
guns. We were completely, as you call it, in the nude! And the Japanese
were swarming around there, but we made it through to our landing point,
which was northwest of the island of — the HUGE island of New Guinea.
Then from there I proceeded to the Phillipines. But my main station, after I
got to Manila, the main station that was assigned to me was Pallowan. So
my crew and I were shipped out to Palowan, which is just southwest of the
Phillipines itself in the China Sea. And here’s where I spent the last days of
the war. We flew — we were flying raids when MacArthur landed, and then
on the main island of the Phillipines — I forget — there are so many islands
there! I was on a bombing run on — was it April — NO! August seventh,
with my bomb bay doors open, when my radio man called me on the intercom,
and he says, “I just received a message that the war is over!” [emotional
chuckle]
Carol: OH, MAN!
John: So I immediately ordered the bomb bay doors CLOSED!
Carol: YES!
John: And we headed back for Palowan! [quietly] Yes.
And then, during those days immediately after the cessation of actual
combat, we were on patrol duty, because the Russians at that time were
acting up as far as the Kuril Islands were concerned, and they were afraid
that they might invade the Kuril Islands, which were the north end of Japan,
you know? And — but then I guess satisfactory diplomatic relations were
arranged, which ceased all this conflict, but we still patrolled the China Sea
until — and we were actually patrolling between China and — Taiwan — the
island of Taiwan. Because of the Chang Kai Chek had moved his troops over
to Taiwan, and I guess they were just wanting to be sure that the Chinese
troops who had taken over China — the Communists — wouldn’t invade
Taiwan at that time.
So I was there on the islands from August till in November, when an
offer was made to me to take a squadron to go to Korea, and I thought it
John Hakala 42
over. And they also offered me a Majority along with the squadron. That was
supposed to be an enticement. But I had made a commitment with my friend
back home, who was in the hospital, and — undergoing this operation down
in East Lansing — that I would — as soon as my war duty was over, I’d
return to the United States. So I put in my forms for that purpose, and I
came out high man because of my previous service in the Aleutian Islands,
and I was one of the first aboard the ship returning to the States.
Carol: All Right!
John: [chuckle] Well, I returned, then, finally, to San Francisco, the
Golden Gate Bridge, rode under it aboard ship, and was discharged from the
ship, assigned to a military base for transportation eastward. Then what
followed — No! I received orders, then, to — for my final destination, which
was in Wisconsin — for my final discharge action. I’ve forgotten the name of
the place where I went to. It was one of the fields, but for some reason I
can’t remember. Well, anyway, I arrived back in Ironwood two days before my
future wife, Mae returned from East Lansing. She was sent directly to the
Grand View Hospital, where I met with her, and then they gave her a
furlough. This was just before Christmas — for over Christmas week. So I
accompanied her. I brought her to her home, and — saw her set up there,
and then after Christmas was over with, she went back into the hospital for
a few more weeks — I forget weeks or was it a month’s stay before they
finally discharged her. And apparently they figured that they had [her
problem] all corrected, which they did.
Well, by that time, of course, we had made our commitments; we were
to be married that following summer, June seventh, [pause] forty-seven.
[pause] Which we did. And then, thinking it would be preferable — I was
thinking of going back to college, of course, and I was thinking that that
Arizona weather would be a lot better for my wife than that clammy climate
up in northern Michigan — upper Michigan. So we packed up, and we loaded
the forty-one Ford — I had a forty-one Ford — two-door. And we headed out
West! I drove all the way to — first to Arizona, I think. I can’t remember the
places where the universities are located, but I went to the universities at
Arizona, New Mexico, and finally to Denver, or in Colorado, and they all
turned me down. They said that, “You have a good university back in your
area, so that you — you better go back there, and ...” I tried to tell them that
John Hakala 43
this was for my wife’s benefit, I’m wanting to move out West, but they
wouldn’t take that as a . . .
So we returned back to Michigan, and I applied to Michigan College of
Mining and Technology, and they accepted me immediately. It’s now known
as the Michigan Technological University, though. So after four years there, I
got my degree in Forestry, and part of that degree I had made a commitment
with my wife, I said that “We, ah — as soon as I get that degree, we’re
heading for Alaska!” [laugh]
Carol: [laugh] It wasn’t COLD enough in Michigan, huh?
John: [laugh] And she KNEW about this all those years! So when we
finally got back to Ironwood, and we repacked, and — NO, no, NO! NO, no!
That was a big operation! I had to buy a new vehicle, that’s right! ‘Cause
that old forty-one Ford was no longer usable! I made the rounds of all the
garages, and I came upon this one [laugh] — what was it? A forty-nine three-quarter-
ton International truck, painted in bright yellow!
[laugh]
Carol: Here we come! [laugh]
John: And of course by that time we had had — obtained a house
trailer that we had been living in during that last year at Tech, you know. So
I hooked that trailer behind that truck after I had modified the truck to hold
a fifty-gallon reserve tank of gasoline, in the back, that I could run off of. I’d
run till that tank was dry, and then I’d have my eighteen gallon tank, which
was behind the seat, to get me to — HOPEFULLY, to the next gas station.
And of course I had to put on electrical wiring to work the brakes on the
trailer that followed — I mean the house trailer.
So we got all that done, and we took off. And we arrived in — we
crossed the border — the boundary — we arrived at the boundary on July 4,
1950! [chuckle]
Carol: All right! Wow!
John: So we proceeded up the highway to Fairbanks!
Oh! I left out a part! Yeah. That’s right. Prior to this, I had been
making inquiries on going further in school at the University of Alaska. I
received word from one of my inquiries that the new Cooperative Wildlife
Research Unit [Leader], that was being assigned to the University of Alaska,
Fairbanks, would be coming to Tomahawk, Wisconsin, to pick up some beaver
traps — live beaver traps — that when he reached Tomahawk, why he was
John Hakala 44
going to make a side trip to Ironwood to see me. Well, I made arrangements
that we’d meet at the St. James Hotel in the lobby, and, of course, we met
there that morning, and — I had my wife, Mae, come in with me, and I told
her before she went in there, that “This is MY interview,” that “You’re not to
say anything.” [laugh] So she came in, and she sat down alongside of me,
and we talked with this Dr. Hosley, who was the first Cooperative Wildlife
Unit head at the University. He asked me various questions, and how we
were going to make our way, you know, and what we were going to do when
we got there, and I told him that I would need to work this summer, after I
arrived, that we had very little money, that we had just enough money for
that trip up, and I had borrowed to purchase that truck — from relatives, and
that we were sadly in the HOLE, actually. So he turned to my wife, and he
said that, “Do you take dictation?” [laugh] My wife said, “Yes.” He says,
“MY secretary!” and he hired her on the spot! [laugh]
Carol: [laugh] Isn’t that NEAT!
John: Yeah, yeah. So here we arrived in Fairbanks, then, after a —
well, it was a more or less uneventful trip. I had a few flat tires, and stuff
like that, but we made it in, I think it was eleven or twelve days. But we
drove into College, and followed the road up to where the University was
supposed to be, and I got up around the turn-off, just above Dr. Bunnell’s
cottage, where his home — where he lived at the time, and I stopped my
vehicle [chuckle] in the middle of nowhere! And I looked around, and I said,
“Well WHERE’s the University?!” then I see two people come walkin’ towards
me from way in the distance, and they come up to me, and it’s Dr. Hosley
and his son, Ralph. And I asked him, I says, “Where’s the University?” He
says, “It’s right HERE!” [laugh, laugh] All there was then was a big building,
and that was half way over the brow of this hill that we’re on, you know? And
you could barely see the building there! And then there was the water tower,
and then they had — they had begun building one section where they had a
post office on one end of it. They had the post office part done, and they
were building on the rest of it. But then they had various other former
military buildings that they had hauled in and set up for student housing —
that’s right, for student housing. So then I asked, I said, “Well, where am I
going to be able to put up, you know? Set my trailer up?” ‘Cause we figured
we’d use our trailer for our winter home. And we found out we could not park
John Hakala 45
anywheres on University land! We had to get off it completely!! Those were
the regulations those days! [laugh]
Carol: [laugh] Nothin’ THERE, but you can’t USE it!
John: [laugh, laugh] Oh, golly, I’ll tell ya! And then Dr. Hosley says,
“Well I been checkin’ with the Fish and Wildlife service, and there IS a job
being offered that — if you’re interested in, to go to Kodiak Island, Alaska,
and study the bear for the summer.”
I says, “Yes,” I says, “That’d be VERY VERY interesting, but would my
wife be able to accompany me?”
So he said he’ll find out. And he went and — well, maybe it was the
following day that he came, and he say, “No. They will not accept others, you
know?”
So I says, “Well, I’ll have to turn down the job.”
So then the next thing I heard, they opened up a SPECIAL job right
here on the Kenai [National] Moose Range, setting up research plots in this
‘47 burn. They had set it up specifically, I guess, because, ah, — why I don’t
know, but they must have received word from down in Juneau, the Regional
Office, that I had a former friend there who had been my Intelligence Officer
in the seventy-third bomb squadron, and he was a high “mucky-muck” down
there, and he said, “You find a job for JOHN!” [laugh] See, that’s how you
get ahead in this game: by knowing SOMEONE! [laugh]
Carol: Oh, WOW! So he was in Juneau still.
John: He was in Juneau. Oh, yes. He had gone back to Juneau and
took up his former job, and — ‘course he wasn’t the HIGH mucky-muck, but
he was one of the lower totems, you know? But he had enough influence,
anyway, that, ah, — AND, to top it off, he flew all the way to Anchorage, then,
when we drove down, with the truck. I left the trailer there [in Fairbanks],
parked on some private property, to get it off of the — [chuckle] get it off of
University land, and it took us a day and a half to get down. And I remember
— we were coming down what LATER I found out was Sheep Hill — Sheep
Mountain? — and as we were coming down, it was ALL FOG! And all of a
sudden, this HUGE Bull Moose walks — comes across the road! And, of
course. I had to slam on the brakes! He — he just floats through that mist,
you know, this HUGE ANIMAL, you know?! I told Mae, I said, “We’re gonna
have to stop here and, you know, wait until this fog clears up.” So I went a
little further, and I parked, — I saw where there was a place where I could
John Hakala 46
back up into — NO! I DROVE into it, because the tail-end of the truck was
out to the road. And I fixed up our bed back there with a big tarp over it, you
know, and all this mist, and — well, it was even raining slightly. And we
woke up that morning — I stuck my head out from under the tarp, you know,
and I looked ——— and HERE’s Matanuska Glacier right there BESIDE us!!!
[laugh] See how things happen?! [laugh] There it was!! Matanuska Glacier!
RIGHT THERE BESIDE us!! We couldn’t believe it!! [laugh]
So, anyway, we continued on, towards Anchorage, and about — well,
let’s see, was it — it was before you get to Palmer — no, before you get to
Wasilla there’s a stretch of road — and along this road was a long trailer,
both tires flat, and we recognized the rig, because we had driven part way up
the highway with these people, but every time I had a flat, I was in BEHIND,
and every time HE had HIS flats, he was in FRONT, so I was always [helping]
repair flats for HIM, plus my own flats [while] behind! But they made it THAT
far! They were camped out there right alongside the road. They couldn’t GO
any further, ‘cause they had no more TIRES, and they were BROKE. He had
gotten a job immediately in town. He was a skilled carpenter. But [chuckle,
chuckle] They straightened it out afterwards, you know, after he got his first
paycheck, I guess, but...
Well, anyway, we came into town, and we met — it was on a Friday that
we got there. That’s right, ‘cause we had to spend that week end, then. I got
to the Fish and Wildlife office, and they told me that I’ll have to come back
Monday, that they hadn’t received any definite word on this job — I mean
HERE at this location — from Juneau, on the Kenai Moose Range, you know.
So I told Mae, I said, “Well,” I says, “It looks like we’re gonna have to find a
place to park for the week end. So we decided to drive back to where these
people were, you know? Where THEY were parked alongside the road. Yeah,
we KNEW them, at least!! [laugh] Yeah, and THAT’s right, and there was a
spring there — a bubbling spring, where there was lots of water! So I told
Mae, I said, “Well, we’ll get you there, and we’ll heat up water, we’ll wash
your head, and all this and that, and we’ll get set up, you know?” Which we
did.
So the following Monday, we went back to Anchorage, and who should
meet us, but Elkins! My former Intelligence Officer from the Aleutians, you
know? And, of course, he says, “The job is all set up, that you just have to
get down there, and it’s all ready to go. And Mr. Spencer will be up here
John Hakala 47
shortly just to meet with you, and visit with you, you know? Give you some
idea of what the work is.”
So, he says, “In between time,” he said, “let us go over here to this —”
(Gee! Now the word doesn’t come to mind!) — “Oysters!” Yes! Oysters!
BOY! Did we have a meal of oysters with Elkins!
Well, I met with Mr. Spencer, and he gave me a run-down on what the
work was, and how I was to get there. I found I had to go down to the
railroad station, ship my truck a day in advance, and follow it with our
carcasses the following day in the passenger train, and we’d meet up at
Moose Pass — get together at Moose Pass. Which we did. We unloaded the
truck from the freight train, and took off for Kenai. But the road in those
days was nothing like the road now. It was all cobblestones! And it was UP
and DOWN! Weaving through the timber, and it was ALL — there was no
fine gravel, it was ALL BIG BOULDERS! And it took us a half day, from the
time we left Moose Pass to get to Kenai Lake — to the [north] — to Quartz
Creak on Kenai Lake, where we camped for the night.
The following day we drove — finally made it into Kenai. ‘Course you’re
just driving twenty-five, thirty miles an hour, you know, and over this rough
road. And, of course, you’re trying to protect your tires, too, but...
Carol: Good thing you had an International.
John: Yeah, yeah. That was for sure! Then we finally — when we DID
arrive at the Kenai National Moose Range Headquarters, there was just the
log building, which had been the first Agricultural Experimental Station
building in Alaska. That’s where that business had started. And then the
Fish and Wildlife Service, I guess, had taken over that land, but that building
was still set there, and it was — I don’t know how — it must have been
thirty, forty years old at the time, too. But then alongside of it was, of
course, where the Refuge Manager lived. But here, again, that house — or
that place was being remodified — rebuilt by a basement being put on it, so
that was some of my first work. Pick and shovel, [laugh] pick and shovel.
But THEN, to my surprise, I was assigned another job: to make a privy —
‘cause we had no private privy. So we had to build a privy, and . . .
We occupied the upstairs of this former Agricultural building, and there
were no doors, the windows were solidly fly-specked. I tried washing it from
the inside, but it was so dirty on the outside, and I had no ladder to get up
there. And we had one car — or airplane seat, that — unless you had it
John Hakala 48
pressed against the wall, it’d topple over, and I got out our air mattresses,
and I dug out two two-by-fours, and put ‘em on the floor, and put the two
mattresses on the floor along — within the two-by-fours, and that was going
to be our bed. And then we had a small — what was it? — it was a drum —
NO! It was a reel — yeah — a small reel, that we set our gas stove on. And
that was our —[chuckle] that was our quarters for the summer! [laugh] I
hung my rain parka over the doorway for my door! [laugh]
Well, anyway, we got established. ‘Course the — how was it? — My
first assignment — after I’d been pick-and-shoveling, yeah, — on that
basement, well then — I started collecting plants — and mounting plants. So
this had gone on for maybe a half a day, when Mae had gone — or the Refuge
Manager had called her and asked her if she was able to pound a typewriter,
and do that kind of work, and she said, “Sure!” So he says, “Well, would you
come here to my office, and I’ve got some work that needs to be completed.”
But then they got to the office, and he looked in there, and he says, — this
— there’s a big tub in there, you know? He says, “This tub has to be moved
first. Where are we gonna move it?” He had hauled it there from the
bathroom, you know? They were remolding the bathroom! So he was a man
of — well, he was a man of few words, and he said, “Well, ah, — when we get
this tub moved, then we’ll start on the — with the typewriter,” you know?
Then he LEFT! He went FLYING! Yeah! He went FLYING! The next thing I
hear was a tapping at the window, you know? And a hand waving for me to
come, you know? [laugh] Mae’s at the window, and [laugh] I come to see
what’s the problem, and she tells me what’s the story, you know, and — but
she says, “Before we can move that tub in that bathroom, we have to lay the
LINOLEUM!!!” [laugh!! laugh!! laugh!!]
SO! We [chuckle] — I said, “Well, I’ll tell you,” I said, “You go outside.
You go collect plants for me, and you — you put ‘em in this binder — I mean
— the drier, you know.” (I forget what I used to call it.)
Carol: A press?
John: A PRESS! Yeah! A press. And — “I’ll take care of a little of
what I can do here.”
So I proceeded into the bathroom, and I took a look, and — well, I
FIRST looked to see what they had done with the other rooms. I saw they
had first laid another — ONE layer of some kind of a black tar paper down,
that they had glued down, and then they put this linoleum over that. So
John Hakala 49
here I had to cut out all this stuff, and GLUE, and REglue, and GLUE, you
know? And I finally got it set up, and I went and I started draggin’ that —
well, by that time it was — yeah, close to quittin’ time, I guess, that first
day, and — well, I got the tub over there, just ready to go into the bathroom,
but I didn’t want to drag it over that floor, ‘cause I was afraid — it hadn’t
dried enough, you know —or that the linoleum would slip — not stay in one
spot.
Well, Spencer returned later that evening, after he had made his
patrols, and — I heard him drive up. I went in the house, and he helped me
move that bathtub into the bathroom where it was supposed to be! Then we
set up the office for next day’s work.
Carol: [laugh] Was he surprised?
John: Oh, yeah! Well, NAW! HE wasn’t surprised! He knew what
would go on! So then Mae began working for him as a — well, as a typist —
office worker. And, of course, to get ME in there, they had to set up a new
scale. They set up a scale of IGS-1. Nobody knows what it meant, or what it
consisted of, but only it had a fee associated with it, and that was
proportionate to the “I” grade — the number one grade, which was maybe a
hundred-fifty or so dollars a month, you know.
So, well, anyway, I got all my equipment together that I figured I’d need
to use out there setting up these plots. Actually, I had to do a lot of
constructing. I had to make a — that’s right — a meter-square frame, and I
had to dig up a lot of steel posts, for camera points, and then steel posts to
mark the ends of the plots, and I had a truckload of equipment when I
started out. Of course I took my wife with me, and my tent.
We went out there, and we spent — that full week I was settin’ up
these plots, in this burn — ‘47 — it was the ‘47 burn, and here it was 1950,
and it was just as BLACK as the ace of spades! I’d go in those trees, and —
to find out [interruption]
One of these sites that I was setting up, along came a truck, and it had
a flat tire. [interruption]
#TAPE THREE#
As I said, this truck came by, and it had a flat tire. It parked in front of
our vehicle, and the people in it got out. I later learned that his name was
Harold — Harold Waugh, one of the first guides working the Kenai
Peninsula. In later years we had a wonderful gathering with him as a
John Hakala 50
celebration of the tire I helped to repair out on the [chuckle] moose range in
1950.
We continued these plot sites until we had the total, I believe of
twelve established. My wife was with me every day, but then again, she
wanted to be located near water every evening. So here, not knowing
whether I’d be back to the same campsite or not, I’d pack up all our camping
gear, bring it back to my vehicle, move on

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John Hakala 1
John Hakala
Life story
Fish and Wildlife — April/May 1997
#Tape One#
John: “Well, I was born in Ironwood, Michigan, back in September 12,
1919, and at the time we were still — [living with my grandparents on my
mother’s side ] — my mother was taking care of my grandmother, who had
cancer — was seriously ill with cancer. So these are my early recollections.
Maybe I was a year and a half or going on two years old, you know. I was
fortunate to be born in the Newport Mining Company hospital, whereas my
older sister and some of my other siblings, they say they were born in a
sauna — my Grandfather’s sauna. [But I believe they were born at home —
wherever that was at the time.] Upon my Grandmother’s passing away, well,
ah — well, see, at that time my Dad was working in the mine, and so
therefore I had the opportunity of being born in a hospital — this mining
company hospital. And I guess while he was there, too, he was a — no, he
was taking a side course. He was [teaching himself] to be an electrician. And
this was in Newport location of Ironwood, and so during this period of time
he was also installing light poles and distributing power and wiring houses —
electrically wiring houses. (I’m gettin’ too involved in it!)”
Carol: “Oh, no! This is interesting!”
John: **{insert} “There were — five — five brothers and three sisters in
the family. One sister was the eldest, and I followed next. I remember when
— I must have been just at the crawling stage when my Grandfather used to
come in the house for his mid-morning break — in other words, he’d have a
second breakfast, which was around nine — mid-morning. And ah, I’d be
there crawling around. I recall crawling around, and one time he picked me
up, and he set me in the opposite chair to him at the table, and he said, “
From now on, you’re going to eat breakfast with ME!” So I remember what he
had — thinking back, I mean — what he had on that table. He had salt
salmon cut in squares; he had Finnish — what we called Rieska, it’s a flat
bread cut in long slices, and a pitcher of buttermilk, and a bowl of what the
Finns — Finnish people call felia — viilia, actually — is what today is known
as yogurt. One thing I remember about those mid-morning breaks with my
John Hakala 2
Grandfather was that he taught me, also, to DRINK FRESH EGGS! That was
the main dish — set on the middle of the table — was a bowl of fresh
[chicken] EGGS! He’d break an end off the egg shell, he’d hold it in my
mouth, at first, when I was learning, and he told me to SUCK! [chuckle]
And there we’d sit and eat until [chuckle] until I couldn’t hold any more. And
then he’d set me back on the floor, and I’d go off on my way. And this
occurred day after day, and pretty soon I was — I must have been gaining
strength, because I was able to even crawl ONTO that chair. I didn’t have to
have him lift me.
Since that time, I’ve been very — what’s the word now? — PARTIAL
towards eggs. I recall when I had arrived at Elmendorf on December 7, 1942,
there was an indoctrination of the new crews. And we were invited over to
the — I forget whether it was just a mess-hall, or an officers’ club, or the
NCO club. But there, again, as part of the initiation ceremony, the ones who
were conducting this phase of it, had lined up glasses, and had a couple of
dozen eggs sitting on the table, and they broke these eggs into these
glasses, and then they poured in a jot of beer, and they told each of us, as
part of your initiation is to drink this. Which we did. And — I — LOVED it!!
[laugh] I asked for MORE. [laugh laugh chuckle] Ah, yeah, yeah.
What I really recollect is one day — it must have been 1920 or ‘21,
when my Uncle Dex — Edward Sarkella — had returned from the Hawaiian
Islands. He had served in the Panama District, and the Hawaiian Islands for
years and years, and he came home, and apparently he was very ill with
rheumatism — they called it rheumatism those days — they call it arthritis.
I recall hearing voices outside the [chuckle] place we were living. My
Grandfather had a huge sauna, which was double, you know — one side for
men, one side for women. In this mining district, well they all made their
“annual trek” to the steam-bath on Saturday night to get their pores open
from all this iron ore that they had in ‘em, you know? Well anyway, I heard
them — some activity going out there, and I snuck outa the house! I don’t
know if I was such a little kid I don’t know how I got out there, but I
wandered down, looking to see what was going on, and [laugh] there I saw
this huge barrel with my Uncle Dex’s head sticking out of it. He was sitting
on a stool in this barrel — this big wooden barrel, you know! [chuckle] And
then I heard — no! I heard the screech of a wheel barrow. And there comes
my Grandfather from around the back side of the barn. [gesturing] The cows
John Hakala 3
were on this side, and the horses on the other side. So he comes from the
back side of the barn with a wheel-barrow load of horse manure! [laugh] And
he’s chuckling to himself, I guess, and I’m watching, and — see, this all
came back to me, now, in these recent months — just when I’ve been here by
myself.”
Carol: “Just thinkin’ about it, huh?”
John: “Well, I don’t know. From time long ago is more in my mind
than what’s present.
Well, anyway, he wheeled that barrow up to the barrel, and he lifted his
fork — I remember him lifting that fork, and sifting this ah — whatever he
had in that barrow, I assumed afterwards that it was — had to be manure,
you know. I mean, after I got to thinkin’ about it here. Then he — that’s
right, then he took two pails. He went into the sauna, and he came out with
this steaming water in these pails. He had unloaded that wheel-barrow first,
and then he came with those pails, and he poured that water in there, and I
remember, then, when he started laughing! His chuckle! His — it just rings
in my ears even today, you know? And then the next thing I knew, my Uncle
had turned around, and he saw me there! And he hollered to my Mother, you
know, he says, “Non-nie! Get that — whatever you want to call it — brat —
outa here!” [chuckle] Next thing I knew my Mother was FLYING outa the
door of the house, and grabbed me, and brought me in there, you know, and
PULLED down all the blinds, and everything! And here I’d go, sneaking
around and tryin’ to peek out again! [chuckle] She’d be there with a dish
cloth a-WHACKin’ me! [laugh] That’s my earliest recollection.” [laugh]
Carol: “That’s amazing! So what were they doing?”
John: “Well, they were gonna soak him in this ah — hot water to cure
his arth — to cure his rheumatism. And you know, as I recall afterwards, I
mean in later years, when I think back on it, he had no more rheumatism!
He was straight as a rod, and he’d — walk just like a soldier! He never never
had any problems with ah — so, I don’t know. Maybe that was a cure! [laugh]
Maybe that’s the cure I should take! [laugh] But where you gonna find the
horses?” [laugh]
Carol: “Oh! That’s GREAT! [laugh] And you were so curious!”
John: “Yeah! Yeah! Well, that was the bad part of it. I was too
curious all the time! So then my Grandmother passed away, and of course,
John Hakala 4
my Grandfather immediately went to look for the second “Akka,” which is the
second wife. Three days he was back with one, you know!”
Carol: “THREE DAYS?”
John: “Well, he went to Washburn, Wisconsin, and he came back with
one. [laugh] So there can’t be two head — or what do you call them, in the
house — two main women, you know, controlling the house, of course all
three have to go. But by that time, I guess, my father had begun building a
place in Norrie — another location of Ironwood.”
Carol: “Were these his parents, or her parents?”
John: “Her parents. And we moved then to Norrie — as soon as the
new boss wife came, you know. What — oh, yes — that’s right — the reason
we actually DID move to Norrie was that my Dad had obtained a job as
teamster for the fire department. In those days they had — they pulled their
fire wagons and sleds with teams of horses. And I guess he had had
experience selling Watkins items, or whatever they call them, you know,
driving horses and that, so they figured that he’s eligible for the job. Or else
the politicians put him in, you know? As it usually works out.
But then the fire department in Norrie was located just opposite —
kitty-corner to the place where he was born and raised — the house he was
born and raised in! That was something that came to my mind, you know.
Although I have no recollection much — TOO much about the place itself.
But I remember the fire department, because that’s the first place I ambled
to, you know, being [chuckle] — from my HOME, when I got out the door,
well, I went over the hill to the fire department.”
Carol: “Wow! And you were still a little tiny guy!”
John: “Yeah. Well, I must have been going on two and a half years old
or something like that, you know. And [chuckle] (Oh, Golly!) ‘Course these
horses that they had, as I remember them NOW, they were really wild
horses! Holy smokers! They were — and here is a little brat wandering
around in there! I’d go up to where the firemen lived, you know, upstairs.
They had their pole that they’d come down when the bell rang, or whatever
the signal was. I remember going up there. My Dad told me, he said that ah,
“Any time that bell rings, you head for right there in that corner, and you
STAY there!” You know? So I’d watch what went on, and the bell would ring,
and he’d jump off, and he had his pants and his boots all ready so he’d —
when he came off the top bunk, his feet slipped right into his boots, you
John Hakala 5
know, and he’d pull ‘em up, you know, and he’d throw his rubber jacket on,
and down the pole he’d go, and the next thing — by that time the horses
were all loose downstairs, and you’d hear ‘em rumbling and charging around,
and they were trained so they went under their harness. The harnessed drop
on ‘em, and they’d pull up a couple of straps, and the door would open, and
there he’d be with the whip, you know.
So after after — I forget how many months of this, I had gone there one
time when they were going to make a demonstration run — for TIME, see.
They were timing all the drivers. The three shifts that they had — or two
shifts, I forget what — what it was. But — and this was with the WHEELS —
the wagons with the WHEELS — this was in the summer time. And they had
this route down Pine Street, swing over on (what was it?) Ash, or something,
but then up Oak Street and back down to the fire house. But it was quite a
distance. And there was a cliff on two of these places that had just been
blasted through all this broken rock. There was no roadway where that went.
The road had turned off towards Ironwood, and this went straight down the
hill. But this demonstration — well, when I came in there, well my Dad was
there, and he — he stuck me under the front seat of the wagon — lifted me
up there, and he said, “Just stay there!” [laugh] And I recall, then, that
when that bell rang, and those HORSES came, and I was watchin’ this little-bit,
you know, and I saw that harness drop, and they strapped the horses in,
and the doors opened, and my Dad had the whip ready, and OFF he went! And
that wagon just s-S-SLID around that curve, you know, ninety degrees down
the road we went, those horses galloping as fast as they could, and then my
Dad turned around, and told me, he says, “Ring that BELL!” [laugh!] So I
was standing up there, ringing this bell! [laugh laugh]
We got to the — we went through this break in the cliff, you know,
where they had blasted all that [rock] out, and there was no roadway, just
bouncing over those sharp rocks, down to this other road, and when he
swung around THAT curve, that wagon just went, you know — I thought it
was gonna roll OVer — ‘course now when I think back on it, I — thought it
was gonna roll over. But it really SWUNG — so that the horses had to PULL
it to straighten in out. And down the road we went, and we had to make that
OTHER turn. Well, anyway, when we finally got up to the top of Oak Street,
well, the horses were ALL in FOAM! They were just galloping ALL OUT! Dad
John Hakala 6
stopped just for a minute, he said to give ‘em a breather, and he handed me
on the ground. He says, “Go HOME.” [laugh]
He went around the corner, then back to the fire house. But he got the
best time! [laugh laugh] And he did this a couple of times in the winter, too,
you know, in the sleigh. Boy, when that SLEIGH slid around. . .”
Carol: “Oh! That’s what you mean about the WHEELS!”
John: “Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, golly!”
Carol: “Wow! Were they those big, big horses? Or were they regular
sized horses?”
John: “Oh, they were ah — well, I can’t recall, but they were — I don’t
know how they measure them in height, you know. I mean how many hands
high. But they were...”
Carol: “They weren’t the ones with the big feet.”
John: “Oh, no, no, no. Not the big feet. They were — they were more
or less streamlined horses — more like a racehorse instead of a draft horse.
Well anyway, my Dad always was greatly interested in the woods, and
he’d do a lot of trapping, and — on the side — hunting as a boy and as a
young man. And of course that got my interest, too. And ah — how was it
now? — we moved from — that’s right. My Dad finally bought a farm in
Ironwood township from my Mother’s Father. And it was just a — [chuckle]
the Finns always like to go where there’s ROCKS, you know. And this was
ALL ROCKS. That’s all I remember about the place is ROCKS! Rock bluffs,
rock everything, you know. And — well, we moved there in ‘27, I think it was.
And then — how old would that have made me?”
Carol: “You were probably eight.”
John: “Eight? Yeah. Eight, nine. Yeah, that’s right. Mm-hm. Then. .
.On the farm there, well, I started trapping muskrat. And I — that’s the way
I got most of my clothes. It was all during Depression years, you know.
There was no money. Dad had wired practically the whole township in
electricity, and nobody could pay him, so there was a big shortage of change,
you know? And the muskrat I trapped, I recall gettin’ just ten cents a skin
for ‘em. [laugh]”
Carol: “Oh MAN! [But] that was pretty good PAY in the Depression,
wasn’t it?”
John: “Well, I suppose it was then, but when you think back on it —
ten cents! — for forty skins, what was it? Four dollars? [laugh] I recall that
John Hakala 7
forty skins one time I had! Well, anyway, that kept on directing me more or
less towards the woods, you know. And as I grew older, well, even in high
school, I started trapping coyote. But I’d have to travel forty miles to our
hunting place where I set out these traps, and the only way to get there was
by hitch-hiking, you know. But I got a few coyote, as I recall, in those high
school years, but then for the [Ironwood Junior] college, which was located
there at the Ironwood High School — a part of it at that time — although
they made a separate (see, I can’t think of the words again.) — they branched
it out into a new area, [and called it Gogebic Community College] — at the
present time. But I recall when I was going to the Junior College then, we
were earning maybe seven dollars and fifty cents a month. We had jobs —
during those Depression years, you know, it was all government service.
And, of course, they’d give — the treasurer of the college was always there
ready with his hand out to get that seven dollars and fifty cents! And I came
up twenty dollars short on my final counting for one year, you know? And so
I had this coyote line out there, but this was — ah — (what part of the
month was that?) It had to be in the Fall — mm-hm. Because I’d been
trappin’ that summer — running that coyote line. And I’d gone out there —
hitch-hiked out this forty miles, and hiked in to where my traps were, and I
came upon one trap that was sprung, and it had a dead coyote in it, but it
was so far gone already, that I didn’t figure I’d be able to get anything on it,
you know? So I put it all in a bag, and I carried it back to the road, and here
I was — in my pack-sack — and of course it smelled to high Heaven! So a car
happened to stop, and it was one of these older model cars, you know, with
the light bulb out here, where you could sling your strap over it, and I had it
just hanging on the fender. Well, I asked the fella first, if I could do this. I
said, “I’ve got a coyote here that I want to get the bounty on, if I can.” And
he happened to be a Forest Service man. And he drove me back, and let me
off at my drop-off point, and I talked with him all the way in, and that got an
interest in Forestry for me. I asked him a few questions, I guess, about what
his job was, and what he was doing, and he said cruising, and all this stuff,
you know. Setting up timber sales, and all that, and just — well, all the work
that he did. So that must have made an impression on me, because then
after I got this bounty collected — ‘course I had to wait MONTHS! And this
treasurer of the college, he was on me every week, you know. And I brought
him this slip of paper to show him that I had this commission with the state
John Hakala 8
of Michigan for this twenty dollars, [laugh] but he couldn’t wait to get it, you
know! He was ready to kick me outa school! So finally it arrived, and I
dashed over there, and I says, “I hope you’re satisfied now! You don’t have
to worry about kickin’ me out this year, anyway.
Well then — that was in — I graduated in ‘40. ‘Course the war was
comin’ — or anyway expected. Anyway, the conditions were of that kind that
— well, I had had a buddy in college — at this community college — who, as
part of his course, at the community college, took flying as one of his
subjects. And, of course, he soloed and qualified as a pilot. We were pretty
close, so he said that he was putting in for the Flying Cadets. “John,” he
said, “well why don’t you try, too.” So I put in for the Flying Cadets. And this
was in the summer of 1940 — Yeah. Mm-hm. That’s right.
And then ah — come September he receives a notice that he’s to report
to — as a Flying Cadet to a certain base in St. Louis! I forget the name of
the little field that he went to. But here I’m left — waiting! I waited that
fall, I went — of course I was doing some trapping, too, trying to keep ahead
of the game. I had nothing else to fall back on. There was no work. I spent
that hunting season — well, that whole fall and that — up through
Christmas and into January mainly in the woods. I don’t know what I
derived out of it. I know I got my own deer, and all that. I lived on deer meat
for a while. But then when I came back to the farm, I could see that the
situation wasn’t changing, and that the war was looking more critical, so I
decided, I said, “I’m going...” That’s right. No word was coming from these
Flying Cadets — from THE Flying Cadets — or HAD arrived, I should say. So
I went to the — what do you call them — the enlisted men, or the one who
enlists? — see, I can’t think of these words!”
Carol: “Yeah, I can’t think of them either.”
John: “Well, that’s the way my mind is. My mind is that way, that
words don’t come to it now.
Well anyway, I went to see him. I hiked into town — ‘course I had no
vehicles [then], and went to see him, and explained my situation, that I was
waiting for orders to see if I’d qualified for the Flying Cadets, you know? At
least a denial. And he says, “WELL,” he says, “We can fix THAT up SIMPLY!
We can..” he says, “ all you do, is we’ll enlist you as a private in the Air
Corps. You go to your station, and you, ah, you tell them what has
transpired, and they’ll immediately see what’s the results of your physical,
John Hakala 9
and all that, and if you had passed it, and whatever, you know. And if you’re
qualified or whatever.” Yeah. I took him. . .[laugh] [at his word]”
Carol: “You believed him, huh?”
John: “I believed him! So I signed up, went home, told the folks what
I’d done. Next day I had to go back, and get the final papers approved. So my
Dad drove me there, and, of course, then he realized that I’d be leaving, and .
. . It was THAT EVENING, too! That was about — THAT’s right! It was
February fourteenth. Isn’t that Valentine’s Day? YES! February fourteenth I
left them — on February 14, 1941. Whew! That’s right. 1941.
Well anyway, I got, then, finally, to Scott Field, and I found myself in —
a buck private in the rear rank in a [laugh] picking cigarette butts!”
Carol: “Not flyin’, huh?”
John: “Picking cigarette butts! [laugh] That’s all I did for weeks and
weeks and weeks, was pick cigarette butts! I’ll tell you! I got so tired of
cigarette butts, if I see anybody around, coming around smoking even here,
you know, I make sure that that cigarette butt is...”
Carol: “Goes home!”
John: “A-huh— goes home with THEM, yeah! [laugh]
Well, anyway, while I was there at Scott Field, well this friend of mine
from college — or community college days — he heard that I was there, and
he — he made a special trip from
St. Luis to Scott Field, Illinois! St. Louis is in Missouri, isn’t it?”
Carol: “Mm-hm. Yeah.”
John: “I guess. And boy, I’ll tell you, how they snapped to attention
when they saw a Flying Cadet comin’ on base — to visit this lowly buck
private — in the rear rank!”
Carol: [laugh]“Pickin’ up those cigarette butts!”
John: “Picking cigarette butts and washing out those commodes!
[laugh] That was all my work, you know? GOL-LY! [laugh] Well, anyway, we
passed a few hours there together, and then he departed. But then he — he
was — that’s right. He was transferring, then, to another flight school, and
that was I think in — NO, no! He went to ah — Randolph Field. That’s right.
He went — was transferred to Randolph Field. That’s in Texas, you know.”
Carol: “I was gonna ask where it is. Do you remember the town?”
John: “Around San Antonio. ‘Cause, ah, later — well, how was it? —
Yeah! — Well, that’s right! Then they had us take “intelligence tests.” I
John Hakala 10
recall that. We had to scribble out these tests, you know. And apparently I
rated pretty high on some of ‘em, ‘cause they said, “We’re sending you to Fort
Logan, Colorado, to become a typist and sec’etary!” [laugh] So next thing I
knew I was heading on a train for Fort Logan, Colorado, which is close, right
next to Denver, you know? [laugh] And there, for — I don’t know how many
months, three months, or four months, I was ah — learning to pound that
typewriter! [laugh] Geez! It was SOMEthin’, I’ll tell you! And then, after I
finished the course, well, they didn’t know where to ship me to, so they gave
me a job, then, shoveling coal! I had to fill all the officers’ winter coal-storage
bins, you know! [laugh] So all I did there for weeks and weeks was
shovel coal — and just as BLACK as the Ace of Spades, you know? ‘Cause it
was all that soft, bituminous coal, and just as dusty, and — o00, MAN!
But finally orders came through, and it was — where the — it was in
Georgia somewhere — Macon, Georgia! By Golly, I remembered the name!
And I was sent to Macon, Georgia, and I didn’t know it, but this was a
training school where they were teaching British cadets to fly.”
Carol: “Weird!”
John: “Yeah. See? It all comes out in the wash! [laugh] They were
doing this all this time, even though nobody else knew about it! [laugh]
See? We had nothin’ to do with the war! And here we’re training British
flyers!” [laugh]
Carol: “That’re out there doin’ their thing!”
John: “[laugh] Yeah! But then they put me in the headquarters
section of personnel. They figured since I just came out of school, I have all
the brains to do all this stuff, you know. So then they set me down, and all
they had me doing was typing ah — what were they? — typing, typing, typing
PAY reports! SHEETS and SHEETS of pay, you know! NAMES, and every —
every digit had to be checked and rechecked everything.”
Carol: “Oh! Tedious!”
John: “Tedious! Most tedious job! And that’s the first time I ever
used a dial telephone! Was when I was in there! And I didn’t even know
how to operate it! [laugh] I was used to this crank type! [laugh] Yes! I’ll
tell you! I...I — It was a problem at first to get used to it! I didn’t know how
to operate it. But I was supposed to know all this stuff! Here I got all the
payrolls made up for that month, and everything checked out ok, and — but
as time went on, I — how was it?
John Hakala 11
When I first arrived at Scott Field, well, I had all my applications and
everything that I had sent in to the Air Corps for Flying Cadets, so the first
thing I did was to go down to — whatever my main office at that time was, at
Scott Field, and turn them over to the First Sergeant. He took a look at ‘em,
and he brought ‘em into the Lieutenant or Captain, whoever was in charge of
this base squadron that I was pickin’ butts on, you know — cigarette butts,
and ah, the Captain came out, and he handed me the papers, and he told me
to go to headquarters. He says, “See the Sergeant Major at headquarters.
He’ll — he’ll get you straightened up.”
Carol: “All RIGHT!”
John: Well, I was just brand new. That was the first morning. I was
just in brown fatigues, and I had no indoctrination in the military. All these
officers were coming by, and they’d TURN, and they’d LOOK at me, and they’d
LOOK back at me. I was wondering, “What’s the matter?” I was supposed to
be salutin’ ‘em!!! [laugh! laugh!] Here I’m just WALKIN’ ALONG!! [laugh]
Minding my own business!! [laugh laugh] I hadn’t had the first basic — you
know — ANYthing thrown at me as to what — what I was supposed to DO!
[laugh, laugh, chuckle] I was just in these coveralls, you know? [laugh]
I got to this headquarters building, and I guess I didn’t even know what
door to go into, but I climbed up the main stairway, and got in through these
huge doors, and got in there. They all looked at me, you know. [chuckle] I
said, that, ah, Captain so-and-so had sent me up here to see the Sergeant
Major — that — for me to turn these papers over to him. That’s what I recall
saying, anyway. So they got the Sergeant Major, and he brought me into his
office, and ‘course he didn’t have me sit down. He thumbed through those
papers, and he says, “Well,” he says that ah, “You’re in the Army, now!” He
says, “Until we decide whether — I mean the Air Force — until we decide
whether you’re gonna be qualified for the Cadets, you’ll just have to remain
here as a, you know, buck private, and do your thing!” So that was the story
I had from him!
So I went back and reported into the squadron room, or whatever it
was, told ‘em the story, and that’s when they sent me out again — pickin’
butts, you know? Then they — well then they started giving me basic
training, too. Marching! Learning to MARCH! [laugh] I don’t know for how
long I did that. At the same time, they were giving us these intelligence
tests, and that’s when they shipped me to Fort Logan then, and pounding
John Hakala 12
that typewriter; and shoveling that coal! And then I got on that train finally
to Macon, Georgia.
When I got to Macon — of course they didn’t know I was coming. I
arrived at Macon, I guess, in the middle of the night, and I — I didn’t know
where to go, or do anything, and I finally saw a telephone with a notice that
said arrivals for this Air Base just, ah, call, you know. So I called, and I
waited, and I called, and I waited again, and finally at about four o’clock in
the morning they — a truck rolls up, and I climb aboard in the back, and they
haul me down to this flying field, and they have no place to put me up in, so
they put me in a — ah — that’s right, there was the — it was the MP’s that
came to get me — that’s right — in that truck. So they had a recreation
room. And they had a pool table in there. And they threw a blanket on the
pool table, and they told me that — Ah, “You — you sleep here.” [laugh]
“Welcome to Macon, Georgia!” [laugh, laugh] Oh, boy, I’ll tell ya, it was really
a time!
And finally I guess I was assigned, then, to this — whatever —
squadron — headquarters squadron or something, and then to typing out
those pay [roles] or whatever — until the ninth of — NO! It wasn’t the
ninth. It was a Sunday! December 7 in the afternoon. I had gone into
Macon itself — had gotten a pass, and I attended a moving picture show. I
can’t remember what the show was. But anyway, not even half way into the
movie, all of a sudden everything goes black, you know, and they said that —
a fella climbs up on the platform, and says, “All — all service personnel are
directed to report back to their base as quickly as possible. There’s a — take
the quickest available transportation that you can get,” you know? So I
climbed out of the show and went — went to the bus station, got on the bus
and went back to my base, and there I found out that Japan had attacked
Pearl Harbor! And of course EVERYTHING went on alert then, you know!
OH! I’ll tell you! And, ah, ah, nobody knows nothing, you know — to — what
to DO, or anything. But they were all doing SOMEthing, and it was — it was
just, ah, — hilarious!
Carol: Just runnin’ around, huh?
John: That’s all it was! It was just hilarious. Well anyway, that was
Sunday. Monday — now how was it? Yeah! — Monday a special courier came
down from headquarters, you know, on Macon, Georgia, to my squadron, with
orders for John B. Hakala to REPORT to the Flying Cadets!
John Hakala 13
Carol: ALL RIGHT!! [laugh]
John: Kelly Field, Texas! [laugh]
Carol: Y-YES! [laugh]
John: [laugh]
Carol: They WERE listening! Wow!
John: But first, again, I had to pass another physical! See? But they
had the — they had sent the Air Corps medical officer to the station — that
was, ah (one, two) — I think it was the second day after war had been —
well, yeah! The following day war was declared!
Carol: Mm. On Monday.
John: On Monday. Then it was on Tuesday that he appeared, and, ah,
I went through this, ah, interrogation first, and then a quick medical, you
know, and then was handed my orders to report in so many days to Kelly
Field.
So I went to Kelly Field — eventually got there, through New Orleans, I
guess it was, and, ah, by bus mostly. And when I got to Kelly Field, well, I
was assigned to this one squadron, and see, I’d taken ROTC in high school,
and of course when they saw ROTC, {they thought, “officer material!”, you know.
Carol: THAT’s why you weren’t saluting those officers, huh? [laugh]
}[italics were cut from tape by lead]
John: That could be IT, you know? Sheez! [chuckle]
Carol: “Hey! I’m one of ya!” [laugh]
John: [laugh] Yeah, ok. Now I can’t think of what was the position
they assigned me to? Golly! It wasn’t squadron commander. It was the next
one under him — ah — I can’t remember the title, anyway. But it was the —
the second one down. His underling — his immediate underling, but I can’t
think of the word it was. But anyway, they gave me a sword along with it,
and a sand brown belt, you know? [laugh] So here — ah —I’m just out of
basic training, ba— barely able to march in line, and [chuckle] here they got
me [chuckle] in CHARGE of this — ah — squadron of men, you know. And
I’m supposed to instruct THEM in all these basics of MARCHing, and all
that!! [laugh! laugh!] Oh! It was HILARIOUS! But you know, I came out
with a pretty good group! I don’t know how I did it, but I — they were
cooperative, anyway. They didn’t, ah [chuckle] take too much advantage of
me. ‘Course at that time I didn’t [chuckle] much care, either. I just let ‘em
have it with both barrels! Marching them up and down Kelly Field, and got
John Hakala 14
‘em looking pretty good, and we had a final inspection, and I can recall that
— (by golly! I led the whole squadron! Now how come I was leadin’ the
whole squadron? [pause]) I guess my voice was louder — was loudest.
That’s why they put me in front [laugh]— so I could count their “one, two,
three, four!” [laugh] “HEP!” [laugh] That brass sword! NO! I had the saber!
I was waving the saber, too, in the air! That’s right! ‘Cause I had to salute
the [chuckle] whoever it was — the dignitaries, you know. [laugh]
But anyway, I got out o’ there, and they put me in charge of this ah,
truck transportation fleet — to — hauling all these basic — well, the Flying
Cadets — to their next base, you know, which was at Ballenger, Texas.
(That’s right.) I was in charge of that whole line of trucks, you know,
loaded with all these guys. And it took me (what was it?) a day and a half to
get there to the base. I didn’t know anything about these things, you know?
I just sat there in the lead truck with the driver beside me, and [laugh] made
on as if I knew it all! [laugh]
We got there in the middle of the night, I guess it was, and all of a
sudden we got to the gate, you know, of this flying field, and, the lights all
came on, you know! As though, “Here’s — they’re invading! Or engaging in an
ATTACK or something,” you know? And I crawled outa the cab of the truck,
and they grabbed onto me, and they said, — well, I had all these orders, you
know? And they scooted me in there, and brought me to their, ah, head man,
and presented all these orders to him, and eventually we got settled down, I
guess. They gave us a bed, and stuff like that, but that was my first day at
Ballenger, Texas, for — primarily flying. I was there for three months, and I
went — and then I was transferred to Randolph Field! Where my former
classmate had gone! And when he left Randolph, he had gone to the west
coast.
Carol: Oh! He was gone.
John: And when war was declared, he was immediately shipped to the
Phillipines! He didn’t even have a chance to check out in a fighter plane
when he left stateside, you know? And he was sent to the Phillipines, and
he never flew after that!
Carol: He never did fly during the war?
John: No. He was in the Baton March, he fought the Japanese there
on the ground, he was — as an infantryman. This is what I learned later.
And he survived the Baton March, but then, being an officer, the was
John Hakala 15
transferred —they wanted to ship him to Japan. And the only way they could
get him — at that time, I guess — was to ship him by submarine. And ah —
the submarine he was aboard was, ah, — clobbered by and American
submarine.
Carol: Oh, no!
John: MM-hm.
Carol: And he was killed?
John: [quietly] Yep. So that was the end of . . . of him. Well anyway, I
didn’t know about this until later in life, but if I’d learned . . .
But when I was at Kelly Field going — again I was assigned as an
officer of one of the squadrons, you know? I forget the — Oh, I was the lead
man on one of the squadrons. I forget the title. But I had to perform “Officer
of the Day” duty once a month, you know. And that meant that you were up
twenty-four hours — around the clock. ‘Course you’d sleep when you had a
chance, but, ah, but anything going on, well, you had to be on top of it. But
while I was in this capacity I was going through this book of former officers of
the day, you know, their schedules, and that, and I ran across his name!
And there he had it all laid out what he had been doing, you know? So — so
that was, ah . . . I thought, anyway, that his folks would like to know that,
that I had seen this, but [quietly] when I got back to Ironwood, well, they
didn’t appreciate it too much. I mean ..., ah,. . . because I came back alive,
and he was dead, you know.
Carol: Oh! Isn’t that too bad!
John: Yea. So I didn’t see very much of those people any more, even
though we had a pretty good . . . pretty good relationship prior.
Well then, ah,[pause]
After completing my flight training at Randolph, in a BTA, or something
— AT, or something on that order, then I was transferred to Kelly Field,
Texas, as a — supposedly a fighter pilot — for training as a fighter pilot. And
of course there we did a lot of — well, all types of flight training including
gunnery, and bombing, and using, ah, AT6 type of aircraft. And we’d actually
shoot at targets strung up behind a plane that would be flying — with a long
cable, and then this target flying behind, and we’d be diving at that, and
shooting it — or hopefully shooting it up with holes, you know. ‘Cause every
pilot had their own (what would you call it?) — color of ammunition, ‘cause
when they’d penetrate, you’d know who’s bullet had hit. So I think I came
John Hakala 16
out high man. And I was scheduled to go — to continue in fighter pilot
training, you know? Move up! Just then, when (what’s his name? Colonel,
Colonel, Colonel... He’s a Colonel now. He was a Major at that time, ah —
with the B-25’s, when they clobbered Japan off of that carrier? Back in —
what was it? Forty- — yeah, it was forty-two!) Dolittle! General who evolved
as — who ended up as General Dolittle? He was a Major when he began
that, and he got to be a full Colonel when he completed the flight. And then
he rose up in ranks. I guess he went through — a year, up and — he came
out a Major General, or a Lieutenant General, or something like that.
But anyway, the B-25 was the BIG — the HOT DOG! So the whole
class was put into B-25’s!! [laugh] So I had NO chance to get into my —
what I wanted to get into as a fighter pilot, you know? Well, I’d been in
SINGLE engine, SINGLE man — I didn’t want all the responsibility for the
crews, and all that. That’s what I was thinkin’ of. But here I ended up with
— in that capacity, and — and I was then sent from — (where was I at then?)
— [Skott] Field, [Texas] — yeah — I was sent to Greenville, South Carolina!
That’s the state next — north of Georgia! Mm-hm. Greenville, South
Carolina for training in the B-25.
When I got there, they had no airplanes there. Finally a lone B-25, one
of the earliest made models — it was, ah, — came in, you know. And of
course we were all anxious to get aboard, to see what it looked like, and all
this and that, and then we were also taught to fly it — or “checked out” on it
— that was the word — “checking out.” They didn’t teach you to fly them any
more. They figured you knew how to fly, so they just “checked you out.”
Yeah, they checked me out in — what was it? — three hours, — no, three
flights. They checked me out, and they sent me on my way with the airplane,
you know? That’s. . . That’s the way they did it those days.
And you know, when I first soloed at — what was that field that I said
first?
Carol: Not Kelly. . .
John: No. [Ballenger Field, Texas!] Well, in four hours I had my, ah —
they sent me up solo, so I must have had something coming — or going for
me at flying, anyway. They must have thought I was a pilot! [laugh] Well,
anyway, I survived the war, so I must have been! That’s good.
Well anyway, after I finished — as I was approaching the finish end of
our short course at Greenville, South Carolina, a notice was posted on board
John Hakala 17
— the bulletin board, is the word I was trying to say — that “Volunteers are
being” or “Looking for volunteers for special mission.” So I immediately went
up there and signed my name!
Carol: [laugh] You’re kind of a — out there kind of a guy, aren’t you!?”
John: [laugh] Immediately went to sign my name. And then a few of
the others — my so-called “friends” at that time joined me, and put their
names down. So then the next thing we knew we were being loaded aboard a
train to go to California! (I can’t remember this field at all! I mean the
NAME of it! And what the heck was the TOWN? What was the main town? I
can’t even remember that one now. California. California. It won’t come to
me.) But anyway, they had just built this little new airport, or flying base
there, and they had some B-25’s there, of course, then we were checked out
on these B-25’s, ALSO — that’s right — we were sent there for the purpose of
learning to drop — ah — now I can’t even think of THAT name! — these long
— torpedoes! Torpedoes! That’s right. That was the main purpose of our
being assigned there. And then, ah, we had to fly somewheres — a couple a
hundred miles south of th- — Hammer Field! Hammer Field! Hammer Field,
California! That’s the name of the place! Hammer Field, and then, ah, I
guess — the lake that we were practicing flying these missions on — (I can’t
remember that name either) but it was about two hundred miles south of
Hammer F- —Fresno, California! That’s right! Fresno!
So of course to pass the course, you had to — when you dropped your
torpedo, well, you — they had — you were aiming at a “ship”, you know, or —
supposedly a ship. It was a big powered barge or something with a — and to
make sure that you knew what everything was about, that torpedo had to go
right underneath that vessel, you know? The bubbles, of course, would show
it. But I finally passed that course, and the next thing I knew I had orders in
my hand to report to Alaska!
Carol: REALLY!
John: Elmendorf Air Force Base! [laugh]
Carol: Alaska! Did that surprise ya?
John: Oh! YES! We had NO idea! But see, that was after the
Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor and Unalaska. And they couldn’t
retaliate with what bombs they had on these — the Japanese fleet that had
been out there, so that’s why they went into this torpedo training. And that
was the last I ever SAW of a torpedo! [laugh!!] Was when I left Fresno,
John Hakala 18
California!! [laugh] I left the torpedoes behind! [laugh] And here they put
me through all that work for nothin’, you know? Well, maybe it helped me
out on my flying, anyway.
But anyway, when I got to Elmendorf, — yeah! — Yeah, they assigned
an airplane. It was a brand new airplane, too, by golly! That’s right! It had
been brought up through the ferry route, you know, from Montana, through
Canada, up through — I guess — Fairbanks, and then down. I guess that
was the route they flew them in those days. Well I had to take this new
airplane, and ah — and first, — swing the compass. And of course that was a
rather involved procedure with these big aircraft, you know. Like they have
now-a-days where you just — they set ‘em on a platform, and the platform
turns. Here we had to roll the airplane around to a new position all the
time, and get in there and start up the engines, and so you’d have all your
various magnetic forces working when you tried adjusting your compass, you
know. You had to go around and around a couple of times like that, and —
well, I finally got it to MY satisfaction, which I — which was what I figured
was right on the DOT, you know?
So then the next thing, well, let’s see! When was it? It was — I
arrived, by golly, in Anchorage — that’s right — December 7, 1941 —
Carol: Oh! Forty. . .
John: No! ‘42!
Carol: ‘43, probably.
John: No, ‘42! ‘42!
Carol: OH! Okay. ‘42! One year after. . .
John: One year after. That’s right. One year after Pearl Harbor! And I
took this aircraft, and I flew down to — well, I had a crew assigned to me,
too. And we flew down — I forget my first stop down there on the Alaskan
Peninsula. That air base isn’t there any more. [Port Heiden, Alaska.] No, it
must have been — it was, anyway, this side of the present —— Cold Bay!
Heck! All you have to do is think of the weather report! Cold Bay. And this
place that I first landed at was, again, about three, four miles — I mean
three, four hours, by air by — from Cold Bay. So the next day I flew into
Cold Bay, and then from Cold Bay I went down to this secret base which was
supposed to have been there — you know, — when the “Japs” came in? They
were there, of course, but that was on Umnak Island. And Umnak Island
John Hakala 19
now is all Native land. So we never hear anything more about Umnak — or
this air base that was there. Yeah.
Boy, I remember that WIND !! O-o-oh! When I landed there!! And all
that night we had to go out and struggle with those planes! They must have
been — I don’t know! What air speed — They could have been 70! 80! 90
miles an hour, you know? ‘Cause the airplanes themselves were [flying] —
we had ‘em tied down, we went off there, rolled gasoline drums and tied more
ropes to ‘em, tryin’ to keep ‘em down! And of course, just to GET there you
couldn’t see your way! You had to — the lead man took a line — a coil of
line, and unrolled it, you know, as he went, and the rest hung onto the line,
coming behind. And you couldn’t see a thing! That was my first REAL
experience with Alaskan weather! So . . . That Cold Bay, I’ll tell you! That
was a rough spot for wind!
Then I finally got to Umnak. There’s a special name for the base, but I
can’t remember that. [Fort Greely] But I arrived at Umnak on Christmas Eve!
Christmas Eve of ah, — what year did I say that was? — forty- — forty-TWO.
Forty-two. Yeah. Mmm-hmm. And of course we were weathered in there for a
few days, and they were in the process of building Adak at that time. That’s
right. We were held up there to wait until Adak opened. I mean until they
got that air strip in. When the weather cleared, off I went, then, for Adak. I
was assigned to the seventy-third bomb squadron, which, again, was at
Umnak. That base that I was leaving from. Adak was under the seventy-
SEVENTH bomber squadron — ‘25’s — but they sent me ahead, being a new
man, well, they put me on — oh, some kind of status, you know [detached
duty]—so I was flying for both.
Whenever the seventy-seventh was flying, I was flying with them; when the
seventy-third came down, I was flying with them, and again with the seventy-seventh,
you know? They kept me out there all this while, see? [chuckle,
laugh]
Carol: You were doing double duty!
John: [laugh] And, the best part of it was all my gol-darn logs were
practically lost because of that. I don’t have credit for half the hours that I
flew, you know? I was going through some of these magazines — not
magazines — write-ups on the Aleutian war, and what — it pertained
primarily to what the heavy bombers did, you know. But in between you
could get the picture of what the medium bombers were doing, too, but
John Hakala 20
nothing specific. But there was many a case where the B-17’s and the B-24’s
went out, we were right there with ‘em. But nothing was mentioned ever in
these reports, you know.
Carol: That’s strange. Why? Why did they do that?
John: Well, that’s what they — it was somebody keeping records just
for the heavy bombardment squadrons, see? But I knew I was on those
flights, because. . .
(Ah, what the heck! Where did I go off track here?) To Umnak on
Christmas Eve, then Adak, it was a few days later, whatever it was. And
then, of course, we were assigned our first bombing mission to Kiska. And it
was a — what was it? ! I guess it was three hours, three and a half hours —
something like that — to four hours one-way flight. It was a total of about
eight hours round trip. And . . .
Carol: What were you bombing? What were the bombing runs... I don’t
under- — I don’t — I haven’t read much about that. What kind of things
were you going to bomb?
John: OH! Well when — Unalaska was bombed at the same time the
Japanese went into Attu. They occupied Attu and Kiska with their army, you
know? And, of course, they started immediately building a big air field
there on Kiska. And this is what our primary object was — was to destroy
any resemblance of an air field that they could develop so that they couldn’t
get their heavy bombers in, ‘cause — this — this whole story would have
been different had they gotten them in there, see?
So anyway, we bombed Kiska. We bombed it repeatedly. We bombed it
in any kind of weather. We lost more airplanes from weather than we did
from, ah, the results of our raids. Although we did lose aircraft. I don’t say
that we didn’t lose any aircraft, but, ah, I know — I remember a few of the
aircraft that went down, but I can’t remember the people’s names... But
anyway, as soon as they became aware that the Japanese had these float
aircraft on Kiska, well, they immed- — the U.S. [Army] Air Corps —
immediately began planning to have a strip on Amchitka — put in a fighter
strip there to catch these float planes as they come around, you know —
these Japanese floats. ‘Cause if they would have gotten on wheels, then it
would have been a different story — which we prevented by blasting their, ah,
— whatever construction they had in progress, you know, on their air field.
John Hakala 21
And you know, they [the Sea Bees] did the same thing at Amchitka as
they did at Adak. They built a dam across an inlet, you know — a deep inlet,
and they pumped all that water out into the ocean. Then they filled, [as the
water drained, with volcanic debris from the adjacent mountain at the head
of the inlet] — that was the quickest way of makin’ an airstrip, see? And
then they laid some steel matting down on top of that, and they sent the
fighters in there. And the fighters were fortunate. They got there in time;
‘cause the “Japs” started flying their big — BIG float bombers, you know?
Float ships, or — I don’t know what they called them! But anyway, they were
in for a big surprise when these P-40’s hit ‘em, you know?
The NEXT thing I knew, I had orders in my hand to take my airplane
down there and land on this little fighter strip! [laugh] On Amchitka! To
bomb the Japanese from close range! [laugh]
So — that was the next thing that we did. We went down there, and
we flew off of that little fighter strip — full load of bombs, and, ah, I guess we
cut our gas back, because we didn’t need to have all THAT weight. But then
at the same time they were constructing a LARGE strip up above. They had
started the process anyway — for the medium bombers, and the heavy
bombers to use, you know?
By the time they got that strip open —Yeah. — See, we were living in
tents — dug in the side of these hillsides. Then I — well, just before this
airstrip opened — before we moved our aircraft up to the upper strip, well, we
got word that we were assigned a special [quilted] quonset-type hut [called a
Jamesway] that we had to haul down to a hole in the ground where —
somewheres out there in the tundra, you know, and, ah, and BUILD it, you
know. So that’s what we did.
Carol: Gee! This is still winter.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We did it then. [chuckle] We did it. [chuckle]
Well, we got fairly comfortable quarters after we finally got it up there.
Carol: Oh, I bet! A little better than tents.
John: It wasn’t a quonset hut — these metal quansits. This was a
fabric — ah — like a big [canvas] quilt that you draped over the framework,
you know? And it had wooden panels on each end, with a doorway stuck in
it, and ... But they were FAIRLY warm. You had a — an oil stove, I think it
was — NO,no, no, no. No, it was still a coal stove. Yeah, that’s right. There
John Hakala 22
was still a coal stove, and you had to pack in your coal, and — if you wanted
to be warm, you know.
Carol: [laugh] Where did the coal come from?
John: Well, they hauled it in with their freighters, to the harbor there.
‘Course all this activity was goin’ on — the Corps of Engineers was there,
building docks, and building all this stuff, and they were doing all this while
we were running these missions. See, I don’t know what was going on on-site
except MY phase of it — which was all combat.
There was a period of time then, that — from July — in July, where the
weather was socked in so bad that there was NO flying — until one day —
well, we had received reports that the Navy had had a big battle with the
Japanese fleet — outside of Kiska. And they — I forget how many battle
ships the U.S. Navy had there, but they had ‘em strung out in line, and they
kept on shootin’ these high-powered guns, you know, towards Kiska itself,
with — as they explained to me later, that — they said that they were seeing
these sightings with radar. And they were shootin’ at these radar sightings.
And they emptied out all this ammunition, they emptied out all their oil,
steaming back and forth, and shootin’ away, shootin’ away! And finally they
had to drop back a hundred or a hundred and fifty miles to the Southeast to
refuel and reload with ammunition. And it was then, when the Japanese
were out there with their fleet, that they came in to Kiska, and they
evacuated ALL their MEN! They — in less than an HOUR they had ‘em all
aboard, and they were going out! This came to light after the war, of course.
Nobody KNEW about this.
But anyway, this weather was all socked in solid, you know? And all of
a sudden, we got a report — I — well, actually, I’d been packing my briefcase
with all my maps, and all my accouterments, you know — my slip-sticks, and
my slides, and all that stuff — for figuring out the time/distance, and drift,
and all that. And I happened to have a — I don’t know HOW I had it in my
pocket, but I had a map of Alaska in my pocket, showing this road that went
from — where was it? — this road wasn’t — the Richardson Highway wasn’t
in yet — it was from Valdez to Fairbanks — THAT road. That dirt road, you
know? [pause]
Oh! I FORGOT to say: When I first arrived in Alaska, after I checked
out that plane?
Carol: Mm-hm.
John Hakala 23
John: I swung that compass?
Carol: Yeah?
John: Of course I had to check out the airplane, too. And, well, I did!
I checked out the airplane. I flew it, and I — that’s the first time I saw the
Kenai Peninsula, you know? Well, that’s right. Just previous to that, that
Fall before — it was ‘41 that the Kenai Moose Range was established by
executive order — by President Roosevelt! And I had said at that time, when
I saw this, and I was back there at Randolph Field, or Kelly Field, or ONE of
those places, where I saw this little item in my home-town newspaper — it
was a little piece, you know? I says, “BOY!! Wouldn’t THAT be a place to GO
to!!” [laugh] Yeah! And the first thing I did when I took off, you know, on
the [check-out] flight, I made this whole flight down to the Kenai Peninsula,
all the way to the end of Homer Spit, you know? Of course the maps we had
didn’t have ANY of this stuff on it. There was no Homer there! There was
NOTHING, you know? But I remember when I was coming back, I saw all
these MOOSE up there between Tustumena and Skilak Lakes, you know.
‘Course I didn’t even know the names of those two lakes, ‘cause all we had
was — all we operated with was Navy maps! And they were all WATER maps,
you know? Showing — showing the different fathoms! Not heights, you
know? [laugh]
But anyway, this one morning in July, — well, see, I’d been packin’ this
gol-darn case back and forth, and slogging through that MUD, and I think it
was about a mile and a half to where my abode was, the one we had built,
you know? So I said, well — see, I was going off duty. This was the last day
of my shift, to be on alert. I wouldn’t have to be sittin’ there on that flight
line, you know, come daylight — or — seven o’clock in the morning. So I
figured, “Why, SHUCKS! With this weather, the way it’s been holding, — no
aircraft could take off outa here, you know? So I go merrily back up there,
leave my bag at home. But I had this-here road map, for some reason, stuck
in my pocket! I don’t know HOW it was! I got there, and no sooner I got in
that tent, than that crank phone rang, you know, and “Pilots get ready!
You’re going out on an immediate mission” you know.
So — nothing I could do, but just get out to my aircraft, and check it
out — see that everything was [in working order], and — well, the lead pilot
had a navigator with him, but the weather was socked in so solid, when we
took off on the strip, I had to set my compass — not my magnetic — [a Gyro]
John Hakala 24
compass — so that I’d hold a straight course down the runway. I couldn’t
SEE anything. Took off, and I flew for pretty near four hours, just skipping
the waves, but we were told one course to head on after we got off the strip
— off the landing strip, you know. So I set that course up, and I tried flying
as close to the water as I could, so I was just seeing dimples out there. And
it was blowin’! And this fog was just SO thick! For four hours, I was just
flying instruments. And all of a sudden, I POPPED out into the clear — it
was just like an inverted bowl, you know? A huge inverted bowl. And up in
the corner, WA-AY up there, there was a Navy PBY flying. And that’s what we
were homing in on. And off to my [left], here, this [line] of ships! And these
must have been the same ships that had [left] Kiska, you know. They had
made that big circle, and they were coming — and this was toward the Kuril
Islands! This is how FAR [west] we were! We had flown all that way out
there, you know?
Carol: With nothin’ but your instruments!
John: [laugh]
Carol: GEE! Were they American ships, or Japanese ships?
John: NO! These were all Japanese ships! Well I, ah, — I didn’t
know who they were, but I figured that they had to be the enemy, because
that’s the only reason they sent us out there. ‘Course I was the left man on
the lead man’s — five-plane formation — I mean I was the left wingman. So
when he wobbled his wing, well, I peeled off, and I made for the one that I
saw. And he came after the next one, and then the next one followed on
down. Well anyway, I made this run on ‘em, and we had four five-hundred-pound
bombs. I came in — this is where those torpedoes maybe would’a
come in handy, but — but they superseded the torpedoes with the skip-bombing
— with five-hundred-pound bombs. I had four five-hundred-pound
bombs on, and came in, and we were spraying that deck, you know, back and
forth, with fifty-caliber machine-gun bullets, and of course, they’re shootin’
back at us, you know, and I remember I had all — I was pressing the [button
to the] machine guns with [the thumb of my left hand], and then [when we
were in bombing range] I started droppin’ the bombs [with my right thmb on
the other button at the heifght of 150 feet.] And I hit that ship! I must have
hit ‘em with three bombs, right in the side, you know? They skipped off the
water. But the fourth bomb hit the deck. And the next thing I — as soon as
— ‘course I had to [pull] up and go over that ship, you know? And I heard my
John Hakala 25
tail-gunner holler, [over my earphones], he says, “TURN! TURN! TURN!
That bomb is coming right after us!!” And I turned, I dumped the [left] wing,
and I turned it as hard as I could, you know? And I swung around, and all I
saw, was a BIG — ‘course, in that turn, all of a sudden we [BOUNCED] up
and down, when that bomb had burst in the air, and of course it riddled my
aircraft a little, too, but nobody was injured. But then, as I turned around
looking down. . . [pause] That ship was GONE! Just that fast!! It was ALL
GONE! And I can’t remember how — it was a LARGE ship, because when I
popped up over it, well, there must have been a hundred feet over on this
end, and a hundred feet over — or MORE, you know — on that end. It was
that big a ship — I mean, ah, from MY [view]point of seeing it — [comparing it
with] the wings of MY aircraft, see? And it just [pause] It was just [pause]
so ASTONISHING, I couldn’t believe it! There wasn’t a sign of . . . [the ship]
just a so- — swirl — a — big swirl of water! So I must have hit their
magazine, and the whole thing must’a blown [and it went down instantly.]
Carol: And it blew up their stuff.
John: Mm-hm. Well anyway, I climbed up to wait for the others, and
the others were having problems. Their bombs wouldn’t drop! One fella even
crawled in the bomb bay to try to drop the bombs from the bomb bay, and
they couldn’t get ‘em loose. They may have — mine was the only ship that
dropped the bombs on that whole flight! They had to finally — well, after
they made so many passes, they used up so much gas, that there was no way
that they were gonna get back to Amchitka, and I knew that myself. So I pull
out this map then, while I was up there flying around, waiting for ‘em. I laid
it out in front of me, and I — I drew this line from — with that heading that
I’d left Amchitka on. And I estimated my time, you know — time and
distance. I made a spot over there where — and then I, ah, figured out,
“Now where would Attu be?” ‘Cause I wanted to get — what I wanted to do
was find Attu and crash-land on the beach, see?
At the same time, Attu was being, ah, invaded. Yeah. The American
troops had gone in — into Attu. That’s right. ‘Course! I had flown a couple
a missions there prior to that — that’s right. I was dumping bombs on Attu
also from Amchitka, you know. But now this flight I was going — went out to
the Kuril Islands in Northern Japan!!
So I made this point, and — I don’t know what I used — did I use a
string, or what, — but I drew a line. I had the co-pilot scratch a line, and we
John Hakala 26
estimated time and distance to get to Attu, and when that time was up, I
figured, well, I’m gonna either run into that island, or else I’ve missed it
completely, and it was all socked in again! See, as soon as you left this
“bowl,” you were back in that solid fog! You’re flying instruments the whole
while! You couldn’t see anything ahead of you ... [and the wind was blowing
so hard that I was flying at a right angle to the wind with my right wing
pointing in the direction I had estimated would bring me to Attu. After my
estimated time of arrival had been reached, I was afraid of running into rock
cliffs or mountains, so] — I called to my squadron. I said, “I’m going up to
see what it’s like on the top,” I says, “see if I can see any mountain peaks.”
So they all followed me up. We were all strung out up there. We came out at
eleven thousand feet above this, ah, this MESS, you know — this mist, and
fog, and [swirling] clouds, and everything. It was all just one big mass! We
came out of it, and I immediately went into a 360° turn, and called my radio
operator to let out his trailing antenna, and send out a “May-Day” requesting
directions to the nearest land, which we figured was Attu Island, as we could
not see any mountain peaks or anything above this overcast. This signal, I
learned afterwards, had been picked up in southeast Alaska, somewheres —
whether by a private individual, or a Federal installation such as the [Army]
Signal Corps, or one of the military establishments, I don’t know. But it was
transferred to Juneau immediately, and from Juneau to Elmendorf Air Force
Base, and from there down to Admiral Kinkaid’s office in — where he was
located in Kodiak — Kodiak being the headquarters for the Navy. They, in
turn, had sent the message to their forces, which were lying off of Attu, and
apparently the message was gotten by this destroyer, who immediately went
out and began broadcasting on that emergency [network], and kept it in line
with the emergency field that was then under construction.
We circled for at least fifteen minutes — possibly more. I had turned
on my radio compass, and finally the needle began wiggling. I settled it
down, and immediately began — well, first I notified the rest of the aircraft
that were in the air that I was going to descend on this heading, which was a
special [emergency frequency] that the Navy used for directional guidance.
So we began to descend through this solid mass of clouds. I couldn’t believe
it when I got down to zero feet in elevation, that I could not see the waves on
the ocean. I still was afraid of running into mountains, but I held this
course, since this was the course that had been indicated on the radio
John Hakala 27
compass. Finally, after the altimeter caught up to my level, that showed me
that I was down below — at least a thousand feet below sea level, I began to
pick up a few white spots underneath me, which indicated cresting waves.
So I started leveling off. And no sooner I leveled off, there in front of me all
of a sudden appeared this HUGE GRAY MASS — hidden in this swirling mist
and fog and black clouds. I immediately pulled my wheel back, and swung
over it. And here was this destroyer! I says, “Well what do I do NOW?” you
know? I kept on the same direction that — after I got over that destroyer, I
was back on the water. I kept on that same direction. All of a sudden,
beneath me was a strip of LAND, you know? It was the north end of, ah, —
what’s the name of that harbor? — Massacre Bay! Massacre Bay on the east
side of Attu! Well, I didn’t know it, not having ever BEEN there, you know?
And my eyes just popped outa my head! I saw MEN down there , you know,
with TRACTORS! They were makin’ an air strip! And they had about a
thousand feet — I saw outa the corner of my eye as I went over this, there
was what I estimated was about a thousand feet of steel matting laid
already, you know? So as SOON as I crossed that strip, I put myself in a
timed turn, one needle-width wide on my [Gyro Compass], you know, I HELD
it there, made a two-hundred and seventy degree turn, and I started
dropping down, and I — Oh, that’s right! I — Yeah, yeah, yeah. — Well, I
was IN that turn — towards the END of it. And I ordered, “Wheels down.”
And the wheels just dropped and HUNG! They just HUNG, and FLOPPED
there. So I immediately told them, “Let’s start pumpin’!” So we pumped, and
we pumped, and we pumped. ‘Course I had to fly the plane. And we got
straightened out — I was just into that two-seventy degree turn, I could see
just ahead of me, that I was just lined up with — exactly with what was
there ahead of me, you know, on the end of this strip? And just then I
heard, “CLICK! [pause] CLICK!” as we were pumping, you know. And then
finally — finally the THIRD “CLICK!” for the nose wheel! And as I came in, I
pulled up my nose, and the wheels set down — I got as close to the edge of
that strip as possible — and my ENGINES quit! So the only thing I could do
then was, I jammed my rudder — right rudder — as HARD as I could, so that
— I knew these other airplanes were following me — and I scooted off that
metal into this — well, it’s all volcanic ash — very soft, you know. But
fortunately it didn’t wreck my front wheel. But see, I had forgot to say that
John Hakala 28
all my hydraulics — all my hydraulics had been shot off. That’s why I was
doing this, see?
Carol: But you could pump it...?
John: Yeah. I could pump. Because there was — in the big tank
where all the hydraulic fluid was kept there was a small tank — just for this
purpose — in case you had a bad leak — so that you may have sufficient
[fluid] to get your wheels down. But I didn’t have enough for flaps, see? But
anyway I didn’t need those flaps, ‘cause the engines quit right there, and
that’s where I would have been sittin’ if I hadn’t scooted off the runway,
‘cause I was out of gasoline!
Carol: WOW!
John: Well, anyway, for thirteen days I sat on that island. WE sat on
that island.
Carol: Everybody else made it in, too, huh?
John: Yeah, they all came in. I mean, let’s see — NO, no! The flight
leader — he had tried to get back — he had the navigator. He thought he
could get back to Amchitka. The navigator brought him to the north end of
Kiska, and of course they sent out a “May-day” there, too, I guess, when they
went down. They ran out of gas on the north end of Kiska, and went down in
the ocean. But the best part was: a Navy PBY was right there to save ‘em!
Think of it! Boy, I’ll tell ya, that Navy did some wondrous things with their
ninety-mile-an-hour aircraft — those huge [PBY] boats, you know?
Carol: So they heard the “May-day,” and they just zipped over there?
John: Yep, yep. They got over there, and they got ‘em. They may have
been in life rafts by that time. I don’t know. I don’t know what the full
extent was, but anyway, they picked ‘em up! But then there was — so that
left four ships: myself, and then the three others — yeah — mm-hm. So
there was four of us on Attu, then, that waited. Until the weather — so-called
weather “cleared.” And they sent — ‘course we got messages then to
Amchitka that — what we needed for repairs, you know? And of course they
sent up an aircraft with these repairs the first break in the weather they got,
but as soon as that aircraft got up to [chuckle] — or LEFT Amchitka, well, the
weather [became] socked in at Amchitka! This is the way it is in the
summer, you know. And they got into Attu, and we got the repair parts, but
then the fellow that flew that airplane in was — some Captain — he says,
“You’re assigned to take this aircraft back to Amchitka.” (You know, the one
John Hakala 29
that he came with.) “I’m to stay here and get this thing repaired.” ‘Course
they wanted time — they wanted time to be in the combat zone. I mean on
the GROUND, you know!
Carol: [laugh] Not COMBATING, just...
John: NO! Just — BE there! But anyway, well, we loaded up with
gasoline, and we took off! And no sooner we took off, we hit this weather!
So instead of flying into it, I decided to fly above it. So I climbed up, and I
came out again at maybe twelve thousand feet, twelve thousand five hundred
feet, and I was headed for Amchitka first, but it was socked in solid. There
were no radio communications with Amchitka at that time, so — although
they could hear us when we, you know, called, but they couldn’t send
messages back to us. So I just told them that I’m continuing on to Adak. I
flew to Adak, and here at Adak they had set up some — I forget ...— “cone of
silence” that you could direct yourself in with your radio compass, and — but
here, again, it was all socked in to the water. Well, the Cone of silence gave
you a position point over the air field where you could figure out your course,
then your glide down to the ocean, and what course you’re to follow to come
back on that air strip, see? Well, I tried it twice. The first time I went down
to a thousand feet below sea level on my altimeter. The second time I went
down to fifteen HUNDRED feet! And I still couldn’t see water. In that short
distance — there was a big change in the barometric pressure. ‘Course if I
had been out of gas, I’d have kept on going down. You know, if I had been to
that critical point. But I was afraid — I knew darn well there were these
mountains right ahead of me — that I would be flying into them at any time.
So I refused. I went back up, and I started east again. I was heading then
for Unalaska. — Yeah. Yeah, I figured that I’d try to get to Unalaska, {though
I didn’t have enough gas for the trip.] I’d gotten up above that whole mess
again — I think it was — it was the same height, I guess, around twelve
thousand feet, twelve thousand five hundred, somewhere around there. I
was proceeding east, all of a sudden to the southeast of me, I saw this black
— ah — ah — what appeared to be a black — I don’t know what it — what it
signified to me, but it was BLACK. I moved over to look at it. And BY
GOLLY! There was a HOLE — ALL the way down to the WATER!! And you
should’a seen me when I — I took off, I — I just — like a screw, you know?
Goin’ DOWN! I’ll tell ya! As fast as I could, and I got outa there, and I
leveled off on the water, — and I was on the east end of Atka! It was the
John Hakala 30
first island of — east of Adak! And as I came around the point, I couldn’t
believe it! During those fifteen days that I’d been on — ah — well, of course
all the while I’d been on Amchitka, too, — but the Sea Bees — again, see,
the Sea Bees were building that strip up there on Massacre Bay. They were
the Sea Bees that were doing that. Here they had put in another metal mat
in this cove. The [Navy] had been using this cove as a refueling site for all
their PBY’s that were out on station. And then they put that strip in just so
they could get supplies in quicker if they needed ‘em, you know? And I saw
these — couple of ships out there, which were the ones that did the
refueling of these PBY’s, and I saw a few PBY’s floatin’ on the water, but
then I saw that STRIP! And boy, I’ll tell you, there was no happier person in
this world! I’ll tell you! We went in there, and we set down, — [and then we
were socked in by weather] again. We were THERE for three days, and —
NOW! That brings to mind! — Mothers’ day was [coming] in a couple of days!
And this was one of the only places outside of Kiska where they had had a
weather station. The Japanese, when they went [into Kiska], captured those
weathermen, you know. There were seven or eight of them that were in there
on Kiska, and this was the second point where they had set up a weather
station with broadcasting facilities. And at the top of this one mountain
behind the airstrip, well, they had this radio station. It was — it was a
signal corps station. That’s right. It was a signal corps station — it was
military. It was part of the Army. I’m pretty sure it was part of the Army.
But anyway, they had this station there, and we went for a hike one of those
days that we were weathered in there, and climbed up to it, and this signal
corps man, whoever he was — I can’t even remember what his face looked
like. But anyway, he told us , he said that, “Would you fellas want to send
flowers to your mothers?” THINK of it!! For MOTHERS’ DAY?!
Carol: Oh MAN! I bet that’d make your mother...
John: Oh! I gave him — well, he said the charge’d be fifteen dollars. I
gave him fifteen dollars, and he took down the address! HA! Isn’t that
something?! [laugh]
Carol: That’s AMAZING!! Did your mother just about DIE?!
John: Oh, I — I didn’t hear. I mean, ah, — well, I MAY have, but I
can’t remember, you know.
Carol: Oh! I bet she just... ‘Course she couldn’t KNOW how...
John: Yeah. Where it was from! [laugh] Oh, golly!
John Hakala 31
But anyway, we took off from there, then, and went back to Amchitka
when the weather opened up. Then how did it go? Oh yeah! We resumed,
supposedly, bombing of Kiska. That’s right. Next weather that was clear
enough to go to Kiska they had a tremendous — see, at this time Attu had
been taken already, and of course they had all these troops. They figured
that they might as well finish up the job and clear out Kiska at the same
time, since they had the Navy out there. And of course they had all this
preprogrammed already, and it was all in action. ‘Course I didn’t know it.
Carol: You were just told where to fly, and...
John: Just told where to fly and what to do, you know? So I was in on
this here bombing run, and everybody that came back said that, “Boy, those
‘Japs’ were shootin’ at us,” and, why, shucks! There wasn’t a thing shot at
us, you know? I said, “There was no flak, there was no NOTHING, you
know?” And I told ‘em, I said, when I got back to be debriefed, I told ‘em, I
says, “There isn’t a single ‘Jap’ left on that island.” I says, “You ...” They
wouldn’t believe me. I says, “Ok. Load up my airplane with gasoline. I’ll
take a volunteer crew, I’ll fly it right in there. I’ll fly at deck level, and I’ll
show you.” Which I did. I got back. No sooner I got outa that airplane, my
mouth was sealed! They had orders for me and my crew. They put me aboard
an airplane to ship us to Elmendorf.
Carol: Why??
John: Well, so that the word wouldn’t get out that the “Japs” had
evacuated! Here this whole — all this big troop movement was in force that
they’re gonna go through with it, you know?
Carol: Oh MAN!
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Carol: So they all got there to an empty island, huh?
John: Yeah, they got there to an empty island, but the Canadians
came from the west, up through this valley, and the Americans came from
the east, up through that valley, and here they slaughtered each other — in
that valley!
Carol: [gasp] You’re KIDding!!
John: Why, sure! They each thought the other were the Japanese!
[laugh]
Carol: That is HORRIBLE!! Whoa! And why didn’t they want you to
say? ‘Cause they just... wanted...
John Hakala 32
John: Well, that whole — well, everything is under military security,
you know? They didn’t want any word to get out that this whole big
movement — ‘course, ah — I couldn’t PROVE that there weren’t any “Japs” in
those hills. But there were nothing down there on the flats. I saw that dog
that those weathermen had had. I saw HIM running around down there. I
was that low that I passed over the . . . [interruption]
So anyhow, I got back to Elmendorf, yeah. I was held there — we were
held there in, ah, incommunicado for a couple of weeks, until this whole
situation had developed at Kiska, you know.
Carol: UNbelievable!
John: And then finally they handed me and my crew orders to return to
the states. And see, I was assigned to the seventy-third bomb squadron,
and I had been flying for the seventy-seventh. And all — all my flying records
were mismatched. I — I don’t have credit for practically NOTHING, you
know? It’s — ALL the flying I did! [chuckle]
Carol: Unbelievable!
John: And then to top it off, the seventy-third bomb squadron — as
soon as I hit the states — was deactivated!
Carol: OH, MAN! Why?
John: I don’t know. That — that was the big question in my mind!
Why did they deactivate it? But the seventy-third bomb squadron was no
more! Well, anyway, I got back home. I remember, first, we landed in
Seattle. We hadn’t had anything green for so many MONTHS — YEARS, and
that. We went to the — well, the hotel we where in, we went down to the
dining room, and we each ordered a whole head of lettuce! A WHOLE HEAD
of LETTUCE!! I’ll tell you! And we chewed on that lettuce! BOY!! That was
the BEST TASTING STUFF!! O-OH! I’ll tell you! It was WONDERFUL! M-M-M-
M-M-M-M-M!!!!!! That meat and stuff they had, they can push that aside!
That lettuce took precedence! I’ll tell you!!
Well, anyway, I finally got back home. I flew from Seattle to
Minneapolis, had to spend the night at Minneapolis, ‘cause there was no air
transportation to home. I had to take a bus. So I had to wait till the
following morning, so I sent a telegram to my folks sayin’ that [poignant
pause] — how did I word it? Oh. “Your prodigal son returns.” [bittersweet
laugh] That I was arriving on the following evening, you know, at a certain
John Hakala 33
time — that’s, anyway according to the bus schedule. Sure enough, I made it
on time.
So then from there I went back to ...What the heck was it?
Carol: Well now when you were deactivated, did that mean you weren’t
IN the service any more?
John: NO NO! NO! I was in the service. It was just the squadron!
No! I was transferred. I was transferred back stateside. But the squadron I
was in was deactivated. So then I don’t know where my records went from
there, or if the seventy-seventh ever turned them over to the seventy-third,
or what. But I never — my flight records didn’t conform to what I had, you
know, in my little book that I scratched every time I flew.
(What the heck happened then?) Oh! I remember I had to go down to
[San Antonio], Texas. (What the heck did I have to do in Texas?) Oh! OK!
For a PHYSICAL! Yeah! They flew me — no, how did that go? I had to travel
to Texas, (that’s right), to have this physical. Then they reassigned me —
no, they sent me to Tampa Bay, Florida, for reassignment! Then — I mean —
all this scattering of stuff, you know? And from Tampa Bay, they sent me
right back to Greenville, South Carolina! [LAUGH, LAUGH!]
Carol: [laugh] Goin’ around in circles!
John: [laugh, laugh] Aw, gee!! And when I got to Greenville, they said,
“Well, that — bozo doesn’t want to do any more FLYING,” you know, — that’s
— they ASSUMED!!
Carol: Without askin’ ya.
John: Yeah. They assigned me to, ah, as a battalion commander of a
black troop of — black troops — ah — on a bombing range. So I was in
charge of this detachment of black troops, you know? Battalion sized — on
this bombing range. And that was located — ( now where was it?) — was it
still in South Carolina, or was that in North Carolina? It was right close to
the boarder, anyway, I forget which. It was in a National Forest — in the
center of a National Forest where they had this bombing range set up. And
— well, I went there, and when I saw the conditions these troops were
working under, I thought I’d improve their conditions. I set up a rec-room for
‘em, with pool tables, and all this stuff, you know? And I set up a PX —
that’s the word: PX — I was trying to figure out that word — PX. But they
wouldn’t — the military wouldn’t finance it. So I financed it. I had the
construction done by the battalion carpenters, and that, and it was right in
John Hakala 34
the buildings themselves. [quietly] But the bad part was [pause] (How many
months was I there? I can’t even remember that.) I was there through
Christmas. That’s right. It was in January. January they must have had a
blast! I mean, somewheres — these Negro troops, I mean the black troops.
They came back to the station, and they wrecked the whole place! They tore
down the door to the PX, and they scattered — well, not SCATTERED — not
only scattered — they removed all the — everything that was in there, and
they — the pool tables were dumped over, all the felt, you know, was ripped,
and torn, and all that! So I figured up the damage, you know? I first called
them all together, when I first saw this, I had the whole troop lined up. I
told ‘em what the situation was, that I had set this up for them, thinkin’ that
I was helpin’ ‘em out, makin’ it easier for their time away from home, to have
these things available to them: their cigarettes, and their pop, and whatever
they wanted, you know — their candy bars, and all that? Why, shucks! It
was well-stocked! And I told ‘em, I said that, if those responsible will step
forward, that I — I’d accept the financial loss — you know — of all this —
that I’d have that pool table repaired outa my own pocket. Nobody would
move. Not a single man would move. I says, “I know ALL of you aren’t
involved in this — or WEREN’T involved in this. It was just a few individuals
that came in drunk, you know?” But nobody would step forward and say
anything. So I said, “OK.” I said, “The next payday you can just figure that
it’s gonna be ALL deducted from your pay.” I says, “I’ve got a total here. I’ve
got it divided up so that each man of you will pay — each your share — since
you don’t want to state who did it, or anything about it.” Well, then, this
caused a BIG RUCKUS back at the base, you know! That Chaplain! You
should have seen the Chaplains coming! Every — Here that ogre’s taking it
out on these black troops, you know? So when the payroll did come, I just —
course everybody was there — I mean the Chaplains, the — they had set up
some Majors, and all that, to observe this thing, see? And I — I just counted
out their money as — I deducted it from ‘em as each one on my sheet of
paper told me to deduct, and I says, “Fine. It’s all settled.” So the next
thing I know, the Colonel of the base comes up — shortly, you know — to see
what the results were. And, ah, ‘course they just come up to — they have a
special meal all the time that you put on for visiting troops, you know? And
as we were sittin’ there at the dining table, I turned to the Colonel I said
that, ah, “How long would it take me to — How long would it take to have me
John Hakala 35
transferred back to flying?” He looked at me — — — see, prior to this — to
keep your rating up, you had to get in so many hours over a two- or three-month
period — of flying. And I couldn’t get that in. But when I’d go into the
main base, to — well, like on business, like gettin’ that payroll, and all that
stuff, I had to do that on my — personally, on my own. ‘Course they’d — the
military truck would drive me there and bring me back. But then a couple of
times — or no, just one time. That’s right. It just occurred one time — I
knew my three month period was over — that I’d be losing out on my flying
status if I didn’t get a flight in. So I went down to my old squadron that I
had been in, and I asked, “Is there any chance of getting some flying in? Do
you have a long cruise — night cruise, or something, you know — mission
that — training mission that I could accompany, as copilot, or whatever?”
And they put me on right away! I flew down to Texas, you know? And I came
back, and I had my time, you know? I held my flight status! But as soon as I
got back to the base, well, this underling, now, of the Colonel’s, you know —
the Lieutenant Colonel — the Executive Officer — that’s right! (That’s what I
was there at Kelly field. I was the “Executive Officer!” [laugh] So we can go
back to that cassette and put in “Executive Officer!” [laugh]) He had me
there. He had me on the rug! Oh, boy, did he chew me out! And he was —
he wasn’t a flying officer, see? And of course the Colonel, himself, wasn’t a
flying officer. He was from World War One days from France, you know. So I
had made up my mind, then, after I got this chewin’ out. I put in an official
application: “Immediate transfer” you know — to — back to flying status,
after I knew I had the status still. Otherwise I’d have had to go through
another big training — retraining program. So I put this through, and, you
know, the Colonel approved it immediately! Within a — I don’t think it was a
WEEK, I was gone from — as soon as they got a replacement for me at this
bombin’ range, I was OUTA THERE! I was back to Greenville, South Carolina!
[laugh]
Carol: Welcome home! [laugh]
John: But then as I came — when I got in there, I reported to
whatever “casual” group I had to report to, they told me, they said, that “You
have to get your own crew.” They said, “We don’t have any men available
except the ‘discards’ over here in this one, ah, one [laugh] quonset — or
building,” you know, for the fellas that hadn’t been assigned, and had been
eliminated from other crews, you know, all the old “[rejects]” — SO-called
John Hakala 36
“has-beens.” Well, I went over there, and I checked with them, talked to
them, and I finally picked out a copilot, navigator — ‘course the navigator —
there was only one navigator, and I wasn’t gonna take him, anyway, but [he
was] the only one there — I had to have a full crew, so I had to take him. I
took an engineer, a radio man, and a tail-gunner — yeah. I got all five — I
got the whole crew. So I proceeded to indoctrinate ‘em back into flying. And,
of course, reindoctrinating myself, too. And, ah, we were doing a lot of
bombing on that bombing range, too! [laugh] Which I had left, you know.
They knew when Hakala was up there, though! [laugh] All the black troops
[laugh] I was gonna tell one of ‘em, I said, “I’m gonna put this down your
gizzard.” [laugh] But I didn’t. I had pity on ‘em.
But then, ah, (how was it?) Oh yes! As soon as I — yeah. Yeah. As
soon as I completed my check-out flights, and I’d run the course that
needed to be done, I’d flown instruments, had come in on instrument
landing, and checked out in all my various activities that I had to check out
in, well, I immediately applied for transfer overseas. So they looked at me,
and they said, “What’s wrong with you?” [laugh] I says, “I want to get outa
HERE!” So next thing I knew, we were aboard a train heading back to
California.
Carol: Now this is in ‘43.
John: This is in ‘43. NO! ‘43 — This is ‘44! This was ‘44! And it was
during this interval, when I had been at home — see, my wife was the best
friend of my younger sister. And their 40 [acres] was just opposite ours, you
know, just a fence line was between us, but I had paid no attention to her
whatsoever all these years, you know, till I got back to Ironwood, and, of
course, being, ah, wanting to see, ah, (oh, what do you call the) —
“excitement” of the town, decided to go into Ironwood itself, and there was
only one little place open for eating, and they served, maybe, some beer and
wine. So I had gone into this place — that’s the ONLY place open in
Ironwood! That’s what kinda town it is, see? And, ah, while I was in there
sittin’ down, in walks a former teacher of mine from my younger days, and he
comes over with his wife, which I had known sometime in the past, too. But
they called me over to their booth, that’s right. They were sittin’ down.
When they saw me, they called me over to their booth, that’s right. I
suppose we were doin’ a little talkin’, and that, and all of a sudden I turned
and looked, and in the door came two ladies — two young ladies. One was
John Hakala 37
the sister of the wife of this teacher — former teacher of mine, — and the
other one was, ah, my later wife, Mae! And I hadn’t seen her since —well,
she was a snotty-nosed little brat, you know? That’s about the size of it, you
know? And here she’s a young lady, you know?! I says, “HO-ly SMOkers!!” I
got up, and I went to there, and I invited her over to the table, too, you know.
Of course, she would have come over there with — being the sister of the
other one — with the sister of the other one. Anyway, that started our [life]
together, but then in between times, she got ill. She got very ill. [quietly]
That’s another story. . .
But anyway, I, ah, shipped out to Sacramento, California, where I
picked up a brand new bomber — checked it out — had to swing those
compasses again, you know? But this time it was on a rotating platform, you
know? It was NICE! It was a quick job! Oh, golly! [laugh] It wasn’t like up
here at Elmendorf! Oh! MAN!! It took time and muscle! And, ah, I got the
aircraft all checked out, and took it out on a couple of maiden flights, and
had long-range tanks installed in it. Everything seemed to be hunky-dory.
They gave me my orders, and — (what time was it in the morning?) — I think
it was one o’clock — one o’clock in the morning I took off from Sacramento,
California, to head for the Phillip- — to head for the Hawaiian Islands. And
before I got half-way, of course, we had to transfer gas from the extra tanks
that we had installed to our wing tanks, where it could be used, you know?
Well, the pump wouldn’t work! So I had to turn around! GOLLY!! I’ll tell
you, was I disappointed!! I had to turn around and go all the way back to
Sacramento! Then I had to fly for hours up there, just doing NOTHing, you
know, trying to get the weight of my load down, so that I could land safely!
So then the next night, we did the same thing again! And we had to come
back! The fuel pumps wouldn’t work! They worked on the ground. I told ‘em
— and they worked before — I made SURE they worked before we took off!
But when we got over there where we needed to transfer gas — they flicked
on, and they went out! So — back we went again!! TWICE now! Now the
THIRD time, I said, “Now THIS is IT!” [laugh] And the same — well, — yeah.
But then we took off — or I took off — WE took off — the whole crew. No!
There — there was just — we had sent a couple of fellas ahead. I don’t know
if they went by water, or if they had flown by other military transportation.
Could have been other military — I don’t recall. But there was myself, my
copilot, my [so-called Navigator], and my — was it the radio man? — yeah!
John Hakala 38
NO! The radio man didn’t accompany me. My engineer accompanied me.
That’s right! Mm-hm. So there were three of us. Two were sent by other
transportation. That was, again, to lighten the load.
Well, the second take-off was the same thing, but when I came back,
my wheels wouldn’t fall — wouldn’t drop! I put the lever down, — nothing!
Anyway, the signal light still showed red — that they weren’t locked, you
know? So, I — (how was it?) — No, it was the NOSE wheel that wasn’t
locked! That’s right! The nose wheel wouldn’t lock. The other wheels
indicated locked. So I called in, and I told them, I said that “Well, I’ll bump
this thing along the runway, and see if I can’t make that nose wheel lock.”
So I came in a couple of times and bumped the bomber down the runway, you
know, and the light wouldn’t change, so then I finally called them, I said,
“Well, you’d better spread some foam out there,” and I said, “I’m gonna come
in anyway. And if that nose wheel collapses, well, at least we’ll have
something greasy to slide on, you know? It wouldn’t wreck the WHOLE
airplane.” So — came in and landed, and — NOTHing! It was just the gol-dang
electrical malfunction! [laugh]
Carol: It was working, but you just didn’t know it.
John: Yeah! It just didn’t show it was working, you know? [laugh] The
red light was on!
TAPE #2 SIDE B
Well, we had to stay that evening until around one o’clock in the
morning at Sacramento. I forget what the name of the military base was, but
this was my third try now to get to the Hawaiian Islands. Everything checked
out. The plane checked out well. We took off, got half-way to the mid-point.
Gas was transferred nicely. We passed over the mid-point ship, which we
had homed in on, — it was anchored out there in mid-Pacific. Then we
turned our course toward Oahu — the Hawaiian Islands. We made our way,
and as we were proceeding, we could see the gas gauge just lowering itself,
and nothing visible in front of you. The weather had been fine all night, and
all of a sudden I saw the largest island. I think it’s where the — I forget the
name of it, but I could see that coming over the horizon, and I was looking at
my gas gauge, and I figured I’d head directly for this largest island. I knew
Oahu was off to my right more, but I wanted to be sure I’d be in the range of
a beach for an emergency landing, because apparently my aircraft was using a
lot more gasoline than normal. [interruption?] Until I made out what I figured
John Hakala 39
was Diamond Head appearing on Oahu. So I turned the airplane towards
Oahu for Diamond Head, and as I approached, I was maybe an hour and a
half out still, my gas needles were both on zero, so I dropped my flaps, lifted
up the tail, reduced speed, and just worked along until I got around Diamond
Head. I sent out an SOS in case we went down in the water. Fortunately,
being in that attitude, it was draining all the gas forward, so that it was all
going into the fuel lines and into the carburetor, where it was needed. We
made it all the way to the mouth of where Pearl Harbor came out, and we had
to swing right then, a hundred eighty degree [turn] to make a landing at the
Air Corps base there. We landed, and immediately a vehicle was in front of
us, and scooted us off to a parking area, and we had to sit in the airplane
and buzz-bomb the inside of the airplane for an hour. ‘Course all this while
I’d shut the engines down. Then the tow truck came, after an hour, and
towed us to the regular parking area. And I had the mechanic, who came
over to the plane, I asked him specifically to check exactly the amount of gas
I had left in those tanks. Which he did. Later on I learned the total was ten
gallons in both tanks! So you can see how close — without having my —
[laugh] how close we were! And we were supposed to have had long-range
carburetors on our aircraft for this flight, so something had gone wrong. But
anyway, we made it. We spent the night there, and — well, no. It was — we
had arrived — it must have been around noon. That’s right. We spent, then,
that afternoon and the night there sleeping. I remember sleeping. We got
up at — for an early breakfast the following morning, and then we were
supposed to take off for Christmas Island, which was due south of Hawaii.
So I went out to the plane after we had our breakfast, ran it up, checked it
out, everything seemed to be functioning properly, so we got aboard, and we
took off, and headed south. We weren’t — well, we had reached the point of
— where we had to transfer gasoline again, and the same thing occurred. So
the red lights came on, no pump working, so we had to turn back to Oahu!
When I arrived there, well, they made me — made us fly — stay in the air for
close to three and a half hours, so it reduced the weight of the airplane for
landing on their airstrip. And when we got — taxied back to the parking area,
the only thing that was wrong was the electrical connections!
Carol: Oh, gee! So you could have made it.
John: Yeah. Well, we couldn’t make it, no! Because the gas didn’t
transfer.
John Hakala 40
Carol: Oh! Oh! The electrical connections wouldn’t allow it!
John: Mm-hm. So the following morning we did the same thing. But
this time I was determined I was going to get through! So even though a
front had been predicted, they had stated that it wouldn’t be a very solid
front. It’d be a very narrow strip that we’d have to cross through in our
southerly direction. But as I approached this front, it kept on getting blacker
and blacker! And I started climbing. I’d been flying down at nine hundred
feet. I climbed to five thousand feet, and looked for an opening through the
front, running down the face of it. I saw what I thought was a light ahead of
me, so I swung the airplane into it to cross over to the other side. And
instead, I must have hit very close to the center of the storm! Because the
next thing we knew, we were up at fifteen thousand feet — and this was —
the altimeter had not been catching up to us rapidly as we had rose, and the
next thing we were plunging down — straight down for the water, and it was
raining so solidly that the inside of the plane was just as though we had —
nothing between us and the elements! It was just POURING rain inside the
plane, and here I was on instruments! Flying those instruments, that —
part — well, one time I know for sure we were even laying on our back! It
had flipped us over, and I got it back straightened out, and we were — I was
VERY happy, though, that the engines didn’t sputter! They kept on running,
even though I had — I had reduced power when we had started these ups
and downs. We had gone up and down at least five times, and all of a
sudden we broke out into the clear! And this is when my navigator — the
one that I had picked up at one of the excess [Baggage”] — refused to do any
more as far as navigating! So I just reached over and switched on my radio
compass as I had done there in the Alleutians, and I let the needle swing
around while I kept the course that I had previously been flying until that
needle started working, and by — before long, it swung over, and I turned the
airplane, and within a [couple of hours] or so, I don’t remember how long it
was, but there was Christmas Island! We landed, and parked, and got off the
plane. A Major came up to me, and he saluted me, and he said, “Major
Baun!” I says, “No, Sir,” I says, “It’s Lieutenant Hakala!” [laugh] I must
have looked like Major Baun, you know. [laugh]
We spent one full day at Christmas Island, and then we took off to go
westward. We left — I forget what day, our dates, what time it was as far as
the leaving part, but we were following the reverse course of Amelia Earhart.
John Hakala 41
And we flew — actually, I found out later I’d flown over the same islands
where she had been reported missing — in that general vicinity. So I was
flying her course, only in reverse. My next stop was Tarawa, then Guadle
Canal, then another point on New Guinea — I can’t remember the name of
the strip, but it was across from Tarawa, where the Japanese had their big
installation, and of course we were flying without any protection. We had no
guns. We were completely, as you call it, in the nude! And the Japanese
were swarming around there, but we made it through to our landing point,
which was northwest of the island of — the HUGE island of New Guinea.
Then from there I proceeded to the Phillipines. But my main station, after I
got to Manila, the main station that was assigned to me was Pallowan. So
my crew and I were shipped out to Palowan, which is just southwest of the
Phillipines itself in the China Sea. And here’s where I spent the last days of
the war. We flew — we were flying raids when MacArthur landed, and then
on the main island of the Phillipines — I forget — there are so many islands
there! I was on a bombing run on — was it April — NO! August seventh,
with my bomb bay doors open, when my radio man called me on the intercom,
and he says, “I just received a message that the war is over!” [emotional
chuckle]
Carol: OH, MAN!
John: So I immediately ordered the bomb bay doors CLOSED!
Carol: YES!
John: And we headed back for Palowan! [quietly] Yes.
And then, during those days immediately after the cessation of actual
combat, we were on patrol duty, because the Russians at that time were
acting up as far as the Kuril Islands were concerned, and they were afraid
that they might invade the Kuril Islands, which were the north end of Japan,
you know? And — but then I guess satisfactory diplomatic relations were
arranged, which ceased all this conflict, but we still patrolled the China Sea
until — and we were actually patrolling between China and — Taiwan — the
island of Taiwan. Because of the Chang Kai Chek had moved his troops over
to Taiwan, and I guess they were just wanting to be sure that the Chinese
troops who had taken over China — the Communists — wouldn’t invade
Taiwan at that time.
So I was there on the islands from August till in November, when an
offer was made to me to take a squadron to go to Korea, and I thought it
John Hakala 42
over. And they also offered me a Majority along with the squadron. That was
supposed to be an enticement. But I had made a commitment with my friend
back home, who was in the hospital, and — undergoing this operation down
in East Lansing — that I would — as soon as my war duty was over, I’d
return to the United States. So I put in my forms for that purpose, and I
came out high man because of my previous service in the Aleutian Islands,
and I was one of the first aboard the ship returning to the States.
Carol: All Right!
John: [chuckle] Well, I returned, then, finally, to San Francisco, the
Golden Gate Bridge, rode under it aboard ship, and was discharged from the
ship, assigned to a military base for transportation eastward. Then what
followed — No! I received orders, then, to — for my final destination, which
was in Wisconsin — for my final discharge action. I’ve forgotten the name of
the place where I went to. It was one of the fields, but for some reason I
can’t remember. Well, anyway, I arrived back in Ironwood two days before my
future wife, Mae returned from East Lansing. She was sent directly to the
Grand View Hospital, where I met with her, and then they gave her a
furlough. This was just before Christmas — for over Christmas week. So I
accompanied her. I brought her to her home, and — saw her set up there,
and then after Christmas was over with, she went back into the hospital for
a few more weeks — I forget weeks or was it a month’s stay before they
finally discharged her. And apparently they figured that they had [her
problem] all corrected, which they did.
Well, by that time, of course, we had made our commitments; we were
to be married that following summer, June seventh, [pause] forty-seven.
[pause] Which we did. And then, thinking it would be preferable — I was
thinking of going back to college, of course, and I was thinking that that
Arizona weather would be a lot better for my wife than that clammy climate
up in northern Michigan — upper Michigan. So we packed up, and we loaded
the forty-one Ford — I had a forty-one Ford — two-door. And we headed out
West! I drove all the way to — first to Arizona, I think. I can’t remember the
places where the universities are located, but I went to the universities at
Arizona, New Mexico, and finally to Denver, or in Colorado, and they all
turned me down. They said that, “You have a good university back in your
area, so that you — you better go back there, and ...” I tried to tell them that
John Hakala 43
this was for my wife’s benefit, I’m wanting to move out West, but they
wouldn’t take that as a . . .
So we returned back to Michigan, and I applied to Michigan College of
Mining and Technology, and they accepted me immediately. It’s now known
as the Michigan Technological University, though. So after four years there, I
got my degree in Forestry, and part of that degree I had made a commitment
with my wife, I said that “We, ah — as soon as I get that degree, we’re
heading for Alaska!” [laugh]
Carol: [laugh] It wasn’t COLD enough in Michigan, huh?
John: [laugh] And she KNEW about this all those years! So when we
finally got back to Ironwood, and we repacked, and — NO, no, NO! NO, no!
That was a big operation! I had to buy a new vehicle, that’s right! ‘Cause
that old forty-one Ford was no longer usable! I made the rounds of all the
garages, and I came upon this one [laugh] — what was it? A forty-nine three-quarter-
ton International truck, painted in bright yellow!
[laugh]
Carol: Here we come! [laugh]
John: And of course by that time we had had — obtained a house
trailer that we had been living in during that last year at Tech, you know. So
I hooked that trailer behind that truck after I had modified the truck to hold
a fifty-gallon reserve tank of gasoline, in the back, that I could run off of. I’d
run till that tank was dry, and then I’d have my eighteen gallon tank, which
was behind the seat, to get me to — HOPEFULLY, to the next gas station.
And of course I had to put on electrical wiring to work the brakes on the
trailer that followed — I mean the house trailer.
So we got all that done, and we took off. And we arrived in — we
crossed the border — the boundary — we arrived at the boundary on July 4,
1950! [chuckle]
Carol: All right! Wow!
John: So we proceeded up the highway to Fairbanks!
Oh! I left out a part! Yeah. That’s right. Prior to this, I had been
making inquiries on going further in school at the University of Alaska. I
received word from one of my inquiries that the new Cooperative Wildlife
Research Unit [Leader], that was being assigned to the University of Alaska,
Fairbanks, would be coming to Tomahawk, Wisconsin, to pick up some beaver
traps — live beaver traps — that when he reached Tomahawk, why he was
John Hakala 44
going to make a side trip to Ironwood to see me. Well, I made arrangements
that we’d meet at the St. James Hotel in the lobby, and, of course, we met
there that morning, and — I had my wife, Mae, come in with me, and I told
her before she went in there, that “This is MY interview,” that “You’re not to
say anything.” [laugh] So she came in, and she sat down alongside of me,
and we talked with this Dr. Hosley, who was the first Cooperative Wildlife
Unit head at the University. He asked me various questions, and how we
were going to make our way, you know, and what we were going to do when
we got there, and I told him that I would need to work this summer, after I
arrived, that we had very little money, that we had just enough money for
that trip up, and I had borrowed to purchase that truck — from relatives, and
that we were sadly in the HOLE, actually. So he turned to my wife, and he
said that, “Do you take dictation?” [laugh] My wife said, “Yes.” He says,
“MY secretary!” and he hired her on the spot! [laugh]
Carol: [laugh] Isn’t that NEAT!
John: Yeah, yeah. So here we arrived in Fairbanks, then, after a —
well, it was a more or less uneventful trip. I had a few flat tires, and stuff
like that, but we made it in, I think it was eleven or twelve days. But we
drove into College, and followed the road up to where the University was
supposed to be, and I got up around the turn-off, just above Dr. Bunnell’s
cottage, where his home — where he lived at the time, and I stopped my
vehicle [chuckle] in the middle of nowhere! And I looked around, and I said,
“Well WHERE’s the University?!” then I see two people come walkin’ towards
me from way in the distance, and they come up to me, and it’s Dr. Hosley
and his son, Ralph. And I asked him, I says, “Where’s the University?” He
says, “It’s right HERE!” [laugh, laugh] All there was then was a big building,
and that was half way over the brow of this hill that we’re on, you know? And
you could barely see the building there! And then there was the water tower,
and then they had — they had begun building one section where they had a
post office on one end of it. They had the post office part done, and they
were building on the rest of it. But then they had various other former
military buildings that they had hauled in and set up for student housing —
that’s right, for student housing. So then I asked, I said, “Well, where am I
going to be able to put up, you know? Set my trailer up?” ‘Cause we figured
we’d use our trailer for our winter home. And we found out we could not park
John Hakala 45
anywheres on University land! We had to get off it completely!! Those were
the regulations those days! [laugh]
Carol: [laugh] Nothin’ THERE, but you can’t USE it!
John: [laugh, laugh] Oh, golly, I’ll tell ya! And then Dr. Hosley says,
“Well I been checkin’ with the Fish and Wildlife service, and there IS a job
being offered that — if you’re interested in, to go to Kodiak Island, Alaska,
and study the bear for the summer.”
I says, “Yes,” I says, “That’d be VERY VERY interesting, but would my
wife be able to accompany me?”
So he said he’ll find out. And he went and — well, maybe it was the
following day that he came, and he say, “No. They will not accept others, you
know?”
So I says, “Well, I’ll have to turn down the job.”
So then the next thing I heard, they opened up a SPECIAL job right
here on the Kenai [National] Moose Range, setting up research plots in this
‘47 burn. They had set it up specifically, I guess, because, ah, — why I don’t
know, but they must have received word from down in Juneau, the Regional
Office, that I had a former friend there who had been my Intelligence Officer
in the seventy-third bomb squadron, and he was a high “mucky-muck” down
there, and he said, “You find a job for JOHN!” [laugh] See, that’s how you
get ahead in this game: by knowing SOMEONE! [laugh]
Carol: Oh, WOW! So he was in Juneau still.
John: He was in Juneau. Oh, yes. He had gone back to Juneau and
took up his former job, and — ‘course he wasn’t the HIGH mucky-muck, but
he was one of the lower totems, you know? But he had enough influence,
anyway, that, ah, — AND, to top it off, he flew all the way to Anchorage, then,
when we drove down, with the truck. I left the trailer there [in Fairbanks],
parked on some private property, to get it off of the — [chuckle] get it off of
University land, and it took us a day and a half to get down. And I remember
— we were coming down what LATER I found out was Sheep Hill — Sheep
Mountain? — and as we were coming down, it was ALL FOG! And all of a
sudden, this HUGE Bull Moose walks — comes across the road! And, of
course. I had to slam on the brakes! He — he just floats through that mist,
you know, this HUGE ANIMAL, you know?! I told Mae, I said, “We’re gonna
have to stop here and, you know, wait until this fog clears up.” So I went a
little further, and I parked, — I saw where there was a place where I could
John Hakala 46
back up into — NO! I DROVE into it, because the tail-end of the truck was
out to the road. And I fixed up our bed back there with a big tarp over it, you
know, and all this mist, and — well, it was even raining slightly. And we
woke up that morning — I stuck my head out from under the tarp, you know,
and I looked ——— and HERE’s Matanuska Glacier right there BESIDE us!!!
[laugh] See how things happen?! [laugh] There it was!! Matanuska Glacier!
RIGHT THERE BESIDE us!! We couldn’t believe it!! [laugh]
So, anyway, we continued on, towards Anchorage, and about — well,
let’s see, was it — it was before you get to Palmer — no, before you get to
Wasilla there’s a stretch of road — and along this road was a long trailer,
both tires flat, and we recognized the rig, because we had driven part way up
the highway with these people, but every time I had a flat, I was in BEHIND,
and every time HE had HIS flats, he was in FRONT, so I was always [helping]
repair flats for HIM, plus my own flats [while] behind! But they made it THAT
far! They were camped out there right alongside the road. They couldn’t GO
any further, ‘cause they had no more TIRES, and they were BROKE. He had
gotten a job immediately in town. He was a skilled carpenter. But [chuckle,
chuckle] They straightened it out afterwards, you know, after he got his first
paycheck, I guess, but...
Well, anyway, we came into town, and we met — it was on a Friday that
we got there. That’s right, ‘cause we had to spend that week end, then. I got
to the Fish and Wildlife office, and they told me that I’ll have to come back
Monday, that they hadn’t received any definite word on this job — I mean
HERE at this location — from Juneau, on the Kenai Moose Range, you know.
So I told Mae, I said, “Well,” I says, “It looks like we’re gonna have to find a
place to park for the week end. So we decided to drive back to where these
people were, you know? Where THEY were parked alongside the road. Yeah,
we KNEW them, at least!! [laugh] Yeah, and THAT’s right, and there was a
spring there — a bubbling spring, where there was lots of water! So I told
Mae, I said, “Well, we’ll get you there, and we’ll heat up water, we’ll wash
your head, and all this and that, and we’ll get set up, you know?” Which we
did.
So the following Monday, we went back to Anchorage, and who should
meet us, but Elkins! My former Intelligence Officer from the Aleutians, you
know? And, of course, he says, “The job is all set up, that you just have to
get down there, and it’s all ready to go. And Mr. Spencer will be up here
John Hakala 47
shortly just to meet with you, and visit with you, you know? Give you some
idea of what the work is.”
So, he says, “In between time,” he said, “let us go over here to this —”
(Gee! Now the word doesn’t come to mind!) — “Oysters!” Yes! Oysters!
BOY! Did we have a meal of oysters with Elkins!
Well, I met with Mr. Spencer, and he gave me a run-down on what the
work was, and how I was to get there. I found I had to go down to the
railroad station, ship my truck a day in advance, and follow it with our
carcasses the following day in the passenger train, and we’d meet up at
Moose Pass — get together at Moose Pass. Which we did. We unloaded the
truck from the freight train, and took off for Kenai. But the road in those
days was nothing like the road now. It was all cobblestones! And it was UP
and DOWN! Weaving through the timber, and it was ALL — there was no
fine gravel, it was ALL BIG BOULDERS! And it took us a half day, from the
time we left Moose Pass to get to Kenai Lake — to the [north] — to Quartz
Creak on Kenai Lake, where we camped for the night.
The following day we drove — finally made it into Kenai. ‘Course you’re
just driving twenty-five, thirty miles an hour, you know, and over this rough
road. And, of course, you’re trying to protect your tires, too, but...
Carol: Good thing you had an International.
John: Yeah, yeah. That was for sure! Then we finally — when we DID
arrive at the Kenai National Moose Range Headquarters, there was just the
log building, which had been the first Agricultural Experimental Station
building in Alaska. That’s where that business had started. And then the
Fish and Wildlife Service, I guess, had taken over that land, but that building
was still set there, and it was — I don’t know how — it must have been
thirty, forty years old at the time, too. But then alongside of it was, of
course, where the Refuge Manager lived. But here, again, that house — or
that place was being remodified — rebuilt by a basement being put on it, so
that was some of my first work. Pick and shovel, [laugh] pick and shovel.
But THEN, to my surprise, I was assigned another job: to make a privy —
‘cause we had no private privy. So we had to build a privy, and . . .
We occupied the upstairs of this former Agricultural building, and there
were no doors, the windows were solidly fly-specked. I tried washing it from
the inside, but it was so dirty on the outside, and I had no ladder to get up
there. And we had one car — or airplane seat, that — unless you had it
John Hakala 48
pressed against the wall, it’d topple over, and I got out our air mattresses,
and I dug out two two-by-fours, and put ‘em on the floor, and put the two
mattresses on the floor along — within the two-by-fours, and that was going
to be our bed. And then we had a small — what was it? — it was a drum —
NO! It was a reel — yeah — a small reel, that we set our gas stove on. And
that was our —[chuckle] that was our quarters for the summer! [laugh] I
hung my rain parka over the doorway for my door! [laugh]
Well, anyway, we got established. ‘Course the — how was it? — My
first assignment — after I’d been pick-and-shoveling, yeah, — on that
basement, well then — I started collecting plants — and mounting plants. So
this had gone on for maybe a half a day, when Mae had gone — or the Refuge
Manager had called her and asked her if she was able to pound a typewriter,
and do that kind of work, and she said, “Sure!” So he says, “Well, would you
come here to my office, and I’ve got some work that needs to be completed.”
But then they got to the office, and he looked in there, and he says, — this
— there’s a big tub in there, you know? He says, “This tub has to be moved
first. Where are we gonna move it?” He had hauled it there from the
bathroom, you know? They were remolding the bathroom! So he was a man
of — well, he was a man of few words, and he said, “Well, ah, — when we get
this tub moved, then we’ll start on the — with the typewriter,” you know?
Then he LEFT! He went FLYING! Yeah! He went FLYING! The next thing I
hear was a tapping at the window, you know? And a hand waving for me to
come, you know? [laugh] Mae’s at the window, and [laugh] I come to see
what’s the problem, and she tells me what’s the story, you know, and — but
she says, “Before we can move that tub in that bathroom, we have to lay the
LINOLEUM!!!” [laugh!! laugh!! laugh!!]
SO! We [chuckle] — I said, “Well, I’ll tell you,” I said, “You go outside.
You go collect plants for me, and you — you put ‘em in this binder — I mean
— the drier, you know.” (I forget what I used to call it.)
Carol: A press?
John: A PRESS! Yeah! A press. And — “I’ll take care of a little of
what I can do here.”
So I proceeded into the bathroom, and I took a look, and — well, I
FIRST looked to see what they had done with the other rooms. I saw they
had first laid another — ONE layer of some kind of a black tar paper down,
that they had glued down, and then they put this linoleum over that. So
John Hakala 49
here I had to cut out all this stuff, and GLUE, and REglue, and GLUE, you
know? And I finally got it set up, and I went and I started draggin’ that —
well, by that time it was — yeah, close to quittin’ time, I guess, that first
day, and — well, I got the tub over there, just ready to go into the bathroom,
but I didn’t want to drag it over that floor, ‘cause I was afraid — it hadn’t
dried enough, you know —or that the linoleum would slip — not stay in one
spot.
Well, Spencer returned later that evening, after he had made his
patrols, and — I heard him drive up. I went in the house, and he helped me
move that bathtub into the bathroom where it was supposed to be! Then we
set up the office for next day’s work.
Carol: [laugh] Was he surprised?
John: Oh, yeah! Well, NAW! HE wasn’t surprised! He knew what
would go on! So then Mae began working for him as a — well, as a typist —
office worker. And, of course, to get ME in there, they had to set up a new
scale. They set up a scale of IGS-1. Nobody knows what it meant, or what it
consisted of, but only it had a fee associated with it, and that was
proportionate to the “I” grade — the number one grade, which was maybe a
hundred-fifty or so dollars a month, you know.
So, well, anyway, I got all my equipment together that I figured I’d need
to use out there setting up these plots. Actually, I had to do a lot of
constructing. I had to make a — that’s right — a meter-square frame, and I
had to dig up a lot of steel posts, for camera points, and then steel posts to
mark the ends of the plots, and I had a truckload of equipment when I
started out. Of course I took my wife with me, and my tent.
We went out there, and we spent — that full week I was settin’ up
these plots, in this burn — ‘47 — it was the ‘47 burn, and here it was 1950,
and it was just as BLACK as the ace of spades! I’d go in those trees, and —
to find out [interruption]
One of these sites that I was setting up, along came a truck, and it had
a flat tire. [interruption]
#TAPE THREE#
As I said, this truck came by, and it had a flat tire. It parked in front of
our vehicle, and the people in it got out. I later learned that his name was
Harold — Harold Waugh, one of the first guides working the Kenai
Peninsula. In later years we had a wonderful gathering with him as a
John Hakala 50
celebration of the tire I helped to repair out on the [chuckle] moose range in
1950.
We continued these plot sites until we had the total, I believe of
twelve established. My wife was with me every day, but then again, she
wanted to be located near water every evening. So here, not knowing
whether I’d be back to the same campsite or not, I’d pack up all our camping
gear, bring it back to my vehicle, move on